Summary
Pacific Advisors, a Guardian Life general agency, deployed Brevity's AI-powered role play platform to solve a classic early-career problem: new advisors were burning their natural market before they had the skills to serve it.
By giving advisors a safe place to practice before sitting across from real clients, Brevity freed managers to coach instead of drill and gave leadership the visibility to identify who was most likely to stick.
Kelly Kidwell
Chairman and Founder, Pacific Advisors
Brevity is more than just another technology; it is a transformative innovation in the way we train and develop our advisors.
Company Snapshot
Pacific Advisors is a leading Guardian Life general agency founded by Kelly Kidwell. One of the top-performing agencies in the Guardian network, Pacific Advisors is headquartered in California and focused on developing financial advisors from the earliest stages of their careers through advanced practice development.
With a deep commitment to training and retention, the firm had already built four-year advisor retention rates roughly three times the industry average. But leadership knew there was still room to improve, and that the cost of getting it wrong was steep.
Matt Shipman
Managing Partner, Pacific Advisors
Brevity is the modern approach to training our teams. It's the quickest path to product knowledge and confidence.
The Challenge
An industry-wide retention crisis
In financial services, the first four years define an advisor's career. According to LIMRA industry data, only 11-13% of new financial advisors survive past year four. After that mark, retention jumps to the high 80s and low 90s. The problem is getting them there. Each failed hire represents approximately $65,000 in onboarding, training, and support costs.
Pacific Advisors had already achieved four-year retention of approximately 38%, roughly three times the industry average. But leadership set an ambitious target: 50%. Getting there meant fundamentally rethinking how new advisors were trained.
“Burning the natural market”
Pacific Advisors' leadership identified a core problem: new advisors were practicing on the people most likely to say yes (family, friends, former colleagues) and getting it wrong. In industry terms, they were “burning their natural market,” damaging relationships with their warmest prospects before they had developed the skills to serve them well.
Traditional role play methods weren't solving the problem. Face-to-face drill sessions burned out managers who had to sit through the same scenarios dozens of times. The first advisor got a high-energy coaching experience, while the last got a tired manager going through the motions. Video-based alternatives just shifted the burden, requiring managers to review dozens of identical recordings. And field ride-alongs introduced inconsistency: every manager trained differently, leaving new advisors confused rather than confident.
Why Brevity
Pacific Advisors needed a training approach that could deliver consistent, high-quality practice at scale, without exhausting their management team. Brevity's AI-powered role play platform offered exactly that: a safe environment where advisors could practice prospect conversations, refine objection handling, and build real confidence on their own time, before ever sitting across from a client.
Several factors made Brevity the right fit:
Kelly Kidwell
Chairman and Founder, Pacific Advisors
I don't just get to see if people are getting better. I get to see who's putting in the effort to get better. That tells me a lot about whether or not they're going to be successful. Not just about the role play. It's about seeing if they're coachable.
The Results
Within six months of deploying Brevity across their advisor force, Pacific Advisors saw measurable impact across the metrics that matter most to their business.
Sales productivity increased 44% as advisors entered client conversations better prepared and more confident in their delivery. With consistent practice on real-world scenarios, advisors were converting at higher rates from their very first appointments.
Multi-solution sales improved 25%. Advisors practiced cross-selling scenarios that previously felt too complex or risky to attempt with real clients. Brevity gave them the repetition and confidence to present comprehensive solutions from the start.
Early-career advisor churn dropped 30%, directly addressing the industry's most expensive problem. By ensuring new advisors were prepared before high-stakes conversations rather than learning through costly mistakes, Pacific Advisors reduced the risk of early attrition during the critical first years.
The Bigger Picture
Beyond the headline metrics, Brevity fundamentally changed how Pacific Advisors operates. Managers who once spent hours running repetitive drill sessions now focus on high-value coaching. New hires build confidence before their first client meeting, not during it. And leadership uses analytics to track skill progression across cohorts and intervene early when engagement drops.
Pacific Advisors has since expanded their use of Brevity well beyond initial onboarding. The platform now supports estate planning conversations, experienced advisor development, and recruiting training. What started as a tool for new hires has become central to their talent strategy.
The firm's leadership sees Brevity as a key lever in closing the industry's four-year retention gap. With retention already at three times the industry average and a clear target of 50%, Pacific Advisors is proving that the right training technology doesn't just improve skills. It changes careers.
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