249. How To Create Content That Turns Connections Into Clients

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary, and this is episode 249. Today, I am going to teach you a little hack to help you create some of the best content your prospects want to see. But before we get there, want to make a quick shout out to our sponsor. Yep, it's my company, Complete Game Consulting. We do not take any sponsorships. But I do want to tell you about Complete Game Consulting. You are an insurance professional and you know that you might not be reaching your full potential. You know, you're not quite where you need to be right now to hit your sales goals. I'm here to tell you you still have some time to crush it here in 2023, but you need a plan. You need a better plan to book more appointments with awesome prospects. And if you go listen to my last solo episode, episode 247, I taught you what you need to do to attack the problem. However, if you know you need help, you need the who to help you get there. That's what we do. We help insurance professionals book more appointments with the right prospects so you can do what you do best. And if that's you, I want you to go to the show Notes. We got a link in the notes to schedule a strategy call with our team and we'll jump on and see if our complete Game marketing playbook is a fit for you. All right, go check out the link in the notes right now. And back to today's episode. All right. This is a fun episode. I'm excited about this one because I get this question all the time and I can't wait to answer it, which is, Andy, how am I supposed to create content if I don't have any time? Well, let's talk about that. So where does today's topic come from? Well, one of the things I love doing as part of running Complete Game Consulting is hosting our live full day private workshops that we do for insurance, insurance partners and agencies around the country. And one of the most fun topics I love talking about when we're doing these workshops is helping a team create a content strategy. And I'm here to tell you, number one, if you are hesitant on content or you don't believe it is worthwhile or worth the time, I'm here to tell you you're wrong. Content is the secret sauce today to grow your business. Let's face it, building a relationship with a prospect is not as easy as it used to be. Everything changed after the pandemic. It is harder to get in front of prospects. However, if you have good content, it helps you stay in front of prospects even when you're not literally in front of the prospect. But this leads to the problem. Andy, I am a producer. I am supposed to go out and sell business. How in the world am I going to have time to produce content, to create content? And I'm going to help you solve that today. Now, this really hit home. A couple of weeks ago I was doing a live workshop for an industry partner, a company that is trying to get the attention of brokers and employers and they're in a market that is easily commoditized and they wanted to try to find a way to stand out. And in the back of the room they had four producers who are in charge of new business. And we got into the module we teach called Creating Championship Content. And I could see him start to perk up, which gave me, which gave me excitement because whenever I see those epiphanies, those light bulbs going off in people's minds, I know we're, we're cutting through any of the objections or the hesitations or the hurdles that they might have mentally. And we got toward the end of the, the module and one of the producers raised his hand, he said, andy, I get it, I love the idea. I could see how this could help us stand out. But you gotta understand, man, I'm on the road every day. I'm out meeting these groups, I'm out walking, going, you know, around these towns. We do business. I don't have time to create content. You expected me to literally sit in my office and come up with ideas. And this is a question you might have because it's a question that we get all the time. When, even when we convince agencies and producers to create content.

They don't know where to start and they immediately think it's going to be this part time job. Now, content is the secret that we have used at Complete Game Consulting that has helped us grow the way we have for the past two years. I also believe that in order for content to be successful, you need to be creating it as well. You can't just hire somebody and literally take all content creation off your plate. You have to be a part of the content creation process because if you want to build credibility, you want to build relatability, which is so important in prospecting today. Especially when it's hard to get in front of a prospect, you can't delegate that to somebody else. I want to get to know you. So number one, you have to understand that you need to be a part of the content creation process. Which now brings us to the problem. Andy. I don't have time to create content. And this is where people get stuck. Because people have this belief that in order to be good at content.

You have to sit down and you have to dedicate hours to not only creating content, but you have to dedicate time to sit down and come up with ideas. And that's where people get stuck. I don't have the ideas, I don't know what I'm going to talk about, and nor do I have the time to sit down and actually think about it and then create it.

So here's my advice for you today. I'm giving you the answer early. Instead of creating, I want you to document. This is the answer I gave that sales rep in that live workshop a couple weeks ago. Document, don't create.

And I'm going to talk about what that means. This is a concept I learned when I started following.

People like I call them mentors because I've learned so much from them. Though I've never met them. I've learning from mentors like Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee. When I started digesting his content in 2017, 2018, he was talking about this concept of documenting and not create. And documenting means create content around things you are already doing instead of creating, which is the art of sitting down and trying to come up with new stuff.

So if you think about what you are already doing, how about having conversations with your prospects and clients? How about what your day looks like as you travel from one meeting to the next? You see if you're an insurance professional selling today, one of the best things you can do is to document your journey through the meetings and the conversations you're already having with your prospects and your clients. Right? Because I want you to think of content this way. If I threw you in front of a prospect in the next 10 minutes, I said in 10 minutes you're going to sit down across the table from a prospect. Would you struggle with what to say? Absolutely not. I'd be putting you in your zone of genius. You know what, you know exactly what you would be doing. But for some reason, when I say, now, take that same approach and do it in content, you don't know what to say. Well, here's how you make it really easy. You document, you don't create. Imagine. Let me paint a scenario for you. Imagine you just had a phenomenal meeting with a prospect and you walk out of the meeting and you get in your car and they either Asked a really good question that you gave an awesome answer to, or they threw an objection at you that you handled so well that when you get in the car, you're like, oh, I just wish all my prospects could have heard what I said in there.

Document it.

Get in your car, hit record on your phone and shoot a one to two minute video talking about the conversation you just had with the prospect. Talk about the question they asked, talk about the objection they threw at you. Now you don't have to name the prospect, but just say, hey, just got out of a meeting with a prospect, they asked a really good question. I thought there would be a lot of people who would want to know the answer or my answer to that question. So here we go. That's what I mean by documenting. I actually like to call it the live case study.

Because you just got out of a meeting, you know exactly what the conversation was about. You're in the moment, you're feeling good, your vibe is good. Hit record and talk about it. That is documenting. Why? Because you're already having the conversations. You don't have to try to come up with a new idea or a new topic. All you got to do is record the conversation you just had.

How about this?

You walk out of a finalist meeting, you just won. How you feeling? You are on cloud nine. You can't wait to get back to the office, can't wait to tell your team, tell your boss what you just did. You're seeing what your next paycheck might look like. You're just flying high. Why not get in the car, hit record, and talk about the win? How did you win it? Why did you win it? What was the prospect struggling with that they hired you to solve? That's documenting. That's not bragging. See, a lot of people get caught up in that type of content, thinking it's bragging, but it's not. You've got to let people know you're winning because if your prospects see you're winning, you're building credibility because now they believe you can actually help them win. You are credible in helping a prospect achieve their goals. That's why if you look at any real estate broker out there and go look at their social media content, the vast majority of their content is pictures of them selling a house. Why? They want you to know they're capable of selling a house. So documenting your wins are a huge opportunity to document, not create.

A third example.

Working with another organization about a month ago, and they too were struggling with this idea of having to create all this new content when they are busy, they are a fast growing agency growing at 30% a year. Andy, how in the world are we going to have any time to create content? And as we dug into that conversation, one of the reps popped up, perked up, said, hey, you know what's interesting now that you think about the document, don't create. We have all of our open enrollment meetings, all of our past webinars, all recorded sitting in a file.

And when I heard that, I said, listen.

You just created your content strategy. If you have recorded all your open enrollment meetings for the past two years.

You'Ve recorded all your webinars you've done for the last two years, you have all the content you need for the next two years, you've already recorded it, you've already created it.

Have some editor cut it up into snippets. But you don't have to create any new content for the rest for the next two years if you don't want to document what you're already doing. You see, this is a concept we have started leveraging here at Complete Game Consulting, and it has helped us.

Grow as fast as we are the last two years. When I create my content, people tend to believe I sit in my desk in my office and just create it, Come up with these ideas. No, it comes from documenting what we're already doing.

So that's my advice for you today. If you're again a producer, you're a sales director, maybe you're the marketing director, agency sitting there struggling to go, how are we going to create more content? Because we don't have a lot of time. I'm here to tell you, document, don't create. Document what you're already doing. And I know that can sound egotistical, like, who wants to know about your day? Who wants you to be recording and videotaping your day? That's what people want to see these days. So when you have an amazing conversation with a prospect and client where they asked a really good question, or you made a great statement in the meeting, or they threw an objection at you and you handled it well, get in the car, record it. When you win a new piece of business, record, tell us how you want it, what the prospect was struggling with. When you get out of a meeting with a client who just saw their renewal rates go down 10% because of what you and your team have done, record it. And by all means, if you're sitting on a treasure trove of past recorded content, open enrollment meetings, webinars.

Edit the heck out of that stuff, because you've already recorded it. It's already documented. So take this for what you want. But I am here to tell you that if you are a producer telling me you can't create content because you don't have the time, I have now shown you how to create it without requiring any more time. And that's by documenting what you're already doing. When you go out there and you attack your day with prospect meetings and client renewals and open enrollments, just record the stuff you're already doing, and you will have all the content you and your team ever need. And by the way, that's the content people want to see anyways. They don't need the perfect fancy editing. They don't need the boring elevator music we love to put in our videos in the insurance industry. Just hit record. They want to see the raw, unedited version of you. They want to see what your day looks like. They want to see you coming out of the meeting, sitting in the car, recording the conversation. That's what it's all about today.

And if you're watching this from the video on YouTube, you'll see the three images behind me. It's about being consistent. It's about being persistent. It's about being patient. But if you pump out this kind of content, you're going to have a community of prospects you have built tremendous name recognition with. And this is the secret sauce around how you build exponential growth in your business. How you book appointments with awesome prospects, and you document the conversations you're having with your existing prospects and clients and what you're doing for them. And that will create more relatability and credibility.

You need to grow your book the way you want. So take my advice today. Start documenting. Stop feeling like you have to sit down and create. Just hit record on the things, the conversations, the travels you're already doing. You'll be happy you did all right. Be well.