“Transform your experiences into your winning edge”

Starting RAM Insurance & Financial Services was a journey that started 35 years ago for Brenda Oldham,CEO and owner ofthe Company. She believes that just as you would seek a professional doctor for physical health problems, you should also seek a professional in the financial services industry to improve your finances. Fortunately, she entered the picture at this point, as she has made it her mission to aid those in need in this sector.

After Brenda’s mother passed away from cancer when she was 17, she realized the importance of being financially prepared and made it her mission to learn about finances and helping others. She pursued her education at the University of Michigan majoring in accounting and finance. She obtained a master's degree from Central Michigan University in human resource management as well as licenses in finance. More recently, Brenda has been pursuing her doctoral degree in leadership education, and her dissertation focuses on the experiences of African Americans regarding their wealth before and after a series of financial literacy education workshops.

Brenda began working at Allstate Insurance Company of Michigan on September 21, 1987, as a Sales Management Trainee. This program required becoming a licensed sales agent, hitting top sales production numbers, attending a rigorous sales training school, passing all product knowledge modules, earning a sales designation, and earning a master's degree all while working at the Allstate booth at the SEARS store in Lansing, Michigan’sFrandor Mall. After 13 years, she went through a divorce with her youngest son's father and had to choose between corporate management and child custody. She selected her son and launched her own insurance office in her basement, while raising a 6-year-old alone. Her insurance business gave her flexibility, and RAM Insurance Agency began in October 2001, named after her son, Randy Anthony Meilbeck. It took a lot of strength to leave a high-paying corporate job with benefits and start her own business from scratch.

By virtue of the influence of her late father, James Gause, who migrated from the South to Detroit to make a better life for himself and his family, Brenda has always encouraged herself to educate herself so she could help others, and she also has had a strong passion for educating others so they could improve their financial situations. She is a certified minority-owned business where she offers training to other businesses to improve the profitability of their businesses. In order to provide other businesses with the resources they need to succeed, she is also a certified women-owned business and serves on the board of the Highland-White Lake Association. She expects everyone on her team to feel free to express themselves freely and to feel empowered to help clients. They all share core values with the goal of always putting their client’s needs first.

Brenda prefers to work as a team to solve problems. She gathers information, rates the issues in order of high to low importance, and then meets with her leadership team to discuss the issues. According to her, developing positive relationships with key stakeholders, team members, and internal and external stakeholders is essential for excellent leadership. For her, it is assisting all staff members in realizing their full potential through coaching and training. For her, Zoom meetings work effectively for face-to-face interactions among coworkers when working remotely. They communicate with consumers via a variety of channels, including email, Zoom, LinkedIn, Facebook, and in-person meetings. They also use automated services, emails, and surveys.

Her company's greatest strength is their capacity to help provide clients with limitless options for the most suitable financial strategies, insurance products, financial planning and tax strategies. By researching solutions and customizing financial plans, they typically are able to reduce their clients' expenses. They established an objective to increase the number of homeowners, auto, and commercial insurance clients. They set a revenue growth target of $300,000 per year. By breaking down their goal into agents, quarters, months, and weeks, they were able to accomplish it.

The company utilizes a CRM (customer retention management system), a rater system to compare the costs of over 18 distinct insurance carriers, and retirement analysis software. Brenda and her team have provided employee diversity, equity inclusion training and workshops for fortune 500 companies. Several companies participating in the training were able to reduce employee turnover and increase profitability. The RAM team intends to conduct a series of seminars on financial literacy for schools, public libraries, hospitals, and corporations. Their mission is to eradicate financial illiteracy. RAM Insurance & Financial Services is a family-owned and operated company. They believe in a legacy of prosperity, and in the next five years, their succession planning objectives will be realized as more members of their leadership team advance to executive leadership positions.

We believe and follow this principle,which says:"Even if you have an MBA in Business, financial matters can be daunting. In addition to managing and growing your money, the experienced staff at RAM Insurance & Financial Services aim to provide a continued education that will strengthen our working relationship!"