Coaching Actuaries

Overview

Coaching Actuaries was looking for a project manager and I spent some time trying to help them fill that role, and eventually, I was surprised to receive an offer from them when I was asked to come and interview. Having a degree in marketing, I began asking questions and I would go on to make several impactful changes at Coaching Actuaries.

The first of which was creating an email using the conversation shared by the founder of the company, Dave Kester, who is known in the actuarial community for students studying for certifying exams as Coach Kester. Following up on this, I scheduled a regional tour of universities that had high percentages of students using Coaching Actuaries' product line to help students prepare and furthermore enhance the social visibility through Facebook advertising to increase likes, and thus, post visibility from 1,000 to 17,000.

The longest lasting change that I made at Coaching Actuaries is what instilled the greatest sense of data mongering in me. In addressing any market, you have to look at where all clients stem from. In the case of actuarial exams, there are a series of exams that students must take sequentially, so the best way to acquire a student for the highest lifetime value is to target those taking the very first exam. Once you can help them pass their first exam, you can give them the confidence that they can pass the rest, as there is a high attrition of actuarial science students in universities across the world.

So we directed all of our marketing efforts, including the creation of a blog for credit program for students towards marketing these first exams. Direct efforts for this were measured carefully, and after one year, we had increased revenue per user by 45% and average revenue per sale by 45% and average lifetime value by 55%. What surprised me most about my time at Coaching Actuaries is actually the easiest marketing tactic that we implemented, and this was the creation of a daily email from Coach Kester.

Coach Kester's daily perspective on risk was brought up to me in a conversation three and a half years after it began, with one of the youngest FSA and ASA accredited students in the world, who attributed his ongoing success and motivation to an email that is sent Monday through Friday from Coach Kester with less than two sentences of his daily perspective on life through the eyes of an actuary.