Every January, the staff of the Providence-based Brokers’ Service Marketing Group convenes in Newport for a one-day session to set the budgets, objectives and goals for the coming year. This year, David Lea Jr., the company’s founder and CEO, was eager to finish the meeting because he had a major, final announcement: If three-quarters of the annual goals were reached by Sept. 30, every employee and spouse would receive a company-paid vacation in the Caribbean.
“I could hardly wait to tell them that,” Lea said recently.
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For Lea, who founded the company in 1972, generosity is an expression of his character and also a smart business strategy. First, he values the hard work and loyalty of the company’s employees. “I didn’t build this business myself; I am just an average guy,” Lea said. “I built it on the backs of our people.”
Second, gifts of good will – like the Caribbean trips – combined with other benefits, like company-paid tuition, help Lea and his partners develop a smart and dedicated staff.
“With the interest rates going up now, it is hard to move financial products,” Lea said candidly. “We’ve got to get all the shoulders behind the stone.”
Headquartered at 500 South Main St., Brokers’ Service Marketing Group is a financial services consulting firm specializing in life insurance, annuities and long-term care. “We solve problems for financial people working with the public,” Lea said.
The privately held company has about 50 employees in Providence and its satellite offices in Massachusetts, Virginia and Connecticut. In addition to Lea, who is managing partner, chairman and CEO, the company is headed by M. David Greenburg, partner and president, and Paul A. Sepe, partner and executive vice president.
Lea “treats all the employees as members of his family,” said Pamela DeMelim, chief administrative officer. “All of us are important and pivotal.” DeMelim said Lea and his partners have “kept the business independent so that all the employees could have job security.”
There is little turnover, DeMelim said, adding: “Two of our people have been here over 25 years. We have people who started here right out of high school. They have grown with the company and made very good careers for themselves.”
The company pays for continuing education – five people on staff are taking courses to become certified financial planners and two others are working on MBAs. “We want to motivate the staff and capitalize on what they can provide for Brokers’ Service,” DeMelim said.
The company offers profit sharing to employees. Everyone on the staff, Lea said, is on a bonus plan because, in his view, “everyone should have some feeling of ownership.” Employees receive occasional trips to educational conferences, lavish holiday parties and generous end-of-year bonuses.
Employees say the place feels like a family because of the personal tone that Lea and his partners set, and also because of the younger generation of workers who pop up during college vacation periods.
In the summers, college-age sons and daughters of employees come onboard. Even if there are few spare tasks to go around, “we find work for them,” Lea says. The staff also includes Lea’s four adult sons and daughters.
“It’s a harmonious place,” Lea said. “Everyone who comes in feels welcome.”
Lori McCaughey, the company receptionist, has worked at Brokers’ Service for six years and does not anticipate changing jobs. “When I came for my interview, David Lea made me feel so at home,” McCaughey said. “There is no snobbery, no class system, no cliques here. Everyone is treated with respect.”
