3 Mindset Tips Used By The Top Advisers

I am hitting record. Here we go. All right, so here's what I want to talk about today. You know, you guys know I do these things on a weekly basis. And I realized, Andrew, for you, you were the. You're the only one. Oh, Wendy was on last week's webinar.

Yes, she was.

I think. I think I realized why only we only got three.

I forgot to send out the email. So every week I send out an email. Inviting. I think that's where most of the registrations come from. And I didn't send it out. That's why we had three people. So didn't fail that this time. Okay, guys, here's what I want to talk about. You know, I've got a chance, sitting where I'm sitting today, to work with some really good people, both inside, outside the industry, both advisors, wholesalers, you name it. Some people struggling, some people absolutely kicking ass. And what I thought I'd use today's webinar for, for you guys is you know, just thinking about the mindset when I talk to these people and, you know, I'll share this. One of the first things, one of the first.

Moments of imposter syndrome that I had when I was starting this complete game consulting is.

The first call I ever had. I'll never forget this. It was an advisor who reached out to me for my help. He had built, at this point, his book of business was somewhere between four and five million dollars, and he wanted to get to like eight.

And I'll admit I had imposter syndrome because I'm like, at the end of the day, this guy's probably a better insurance salesman than I am. So initially I'm like, what the hell am I going to do to help this guy?

But then I realized, I said, wait a second, I'm helping with something very specific. I'm going to help him get attention. That's what I'm good at.

And so the reason I bring this up, it was in that first conversation with him, I got a good feel of how he thinks. And then from there, I've connected with a lot of people, and I'm like, I'm just. I observe and I go, how do these people think that has them, you know, with books of business in the millions, Individual books of business, not their whole agency, them. And some agents I know, advisors I know, agencies I know that are selling today for multiples of gross revenue, not multiples of ebitda, multiples of gross revenue, which is unheard of. What are they doing up here? That is allowing them to win year after year. And that's what I wanted to share today, if you guys are cool with it, because I've made some observations and what I'm not gonna. What I'm not gonna talk to you about today, so I hate to disappoint people, is if there's no magic script, there's no silver bullet, there's no. Just type this email and you'll fill your pipeline.

Because I think a lot of people go chasing that in our industry. Could we agree. I used to do that all the time. And thanks for the thumbs up, Andrew. And.

If you go chasing the perfect script or the perfect product, here's my belief. You can be. It can help you get hot for a month, maybe six months. It's not going to help you stay hot for years. And I think the thing that's going to help you stay hot for years is what's going on up here, the way you look at things. And you know, I look at a guy, Wade, if you don't mind. How long have you been in the industry, Wade? Since 1974. Damn, man. I was. That was three years before I was even thought of.

So we've got some veterans that. Brian, how long have you been in the industry?

20 years. 20, like my second, third career.

We've got some veterans in the industry in this. On this call. And this has never been really talked about in our industry. I know when I got in in 2001, it was like, all prospects are good prospects. Go sell product, pitch product, just take any meeting you can and don't share anything with anybody else.

And I'll tell you guys, I've worked for agencies where that is still the belief in 20, 19, 20 or that's what it was. And.

I remember a moment and then I'll get into the three mindsets I want to talk about. I remember a moment, an agency I was with in the last six, seven years.

The owner made a comment that caught me off guard. Two comments, actually. And one comment was.

We, I only want to sell products I have the exclusivity on.

And literally out of his mouth a few minutes after that was, if you're a broker in this country, you're a competitor.

And the first thought in my head is, that's why we're not winning. Right there.

Your mindset is so focused on lack, not abundance.

And actually that's what we're going to use to dovetail right into the first mindset. What I want to challenge everybody on this call to do, especially the veterans, because of the veterans, you've been taught this, like I was. You gotta look at prospecting abundantly.

And Brian, I'm gonna use you as an example, if you don't mind. You did something really respectful. I believe Brian Cheddar joined my last academy or current academy. He's in my current academy. And one of the rules I have in my academy is if you sign up and then somebody else in your market signs up, I come back to the first person and give them the first right of refusal if they're a competitor. And I did. Brian. Right. I came back to you and I asked you that and you said, hey, we can all learn from each other. And this was a direct competitor.

So I respect the hell out of that. Brian. And because that's the first place, I want everybody to start thinking, guys, there is enough to go around.

I don't care what market you're in, there is enough business to go around. So don't look at everything from a lack mindset. Don't fear sharing content with your prospects to help them, because the competition might be listening.

When I talk about this abundant attitude towards prospecting, where I'm really going the most is how you are prospecting. So if you, if you're on social media, if you're hosting webinars, if you're doing a podcast, whatever you do to get content out to your prospects, which I hope you're doing.

I want you to not give a you know what, if competition's listening, here's why.

If you think you're going to wait until a prospect meets with you to share what you do.

Someone's laughing.

It must be one of those guys.

If you think you're going to share, wait and wait to share until the prospect meets with you. You're never going to get to share your stuff, not in today's world of noise.

Prospects are smarter than they've ever been. They want value before they're going to buy from you. So you need to start sharing some of what you do, AKA through your teaching.

When you're prospecting, even if it's on a platform like LinkedIn. Now, here's, here's the rule, guys. I know competition could see it, but here's what I also know. There is not 95% of your competition is too lazy to do anything about it. And they might actually work for somebody who won't let them do what you're doing, truly depending on who they work for. And so I want you to get rid of this attitude if you can. And I'm not being. I'm just saying this. Generally, share, bring value. Because the number one rule I learned that helped my business was.

Prospects are going to buy when they're ready, not when you want them to.

And you want to make sure they're thinking of you when they're ready.

The best way to make sure they think of you when they're ready is for you to bring them a boatload of value before they ever buy.

And if you just go at it with guys, I'm sharing what we do, there's enough to go around. If a competitor hears it, I don't care. It is going to help elevate you and how you prospect so much more effectively today.

Even if a competitor has the same product you have, which is how it is most of the time today, you know you're better at selling it, you know you're better at communicating it. You know you're better than at executing it, right? So get out and talk about it and just be the one the prospect hears from.

So that's number one. That's mindset. The first mindset I see from the men and women out there who are killing it. Heck, they'll even collaborate with the competition.

Number two, the second mindset I wanted to talk about today is one that.

I think used to challenge me a lot. And it's one that I wanted to pass on because I struggled with this horribly. And that is the people I work with or I've talked to that are out really making hay today is they're just taking action. They're not overthinking it. They're not stuck. They're not trying to be perfect.

You know, when I work with my clients, I still have a lot of clients that are stuck. Why? Because they're overthinking the process. I challenge them to start showing up a little more actively, maybe on LinkedIn, and they don't because they're thinking, thinking about it. They're living in this state of maybe fear of failing, a fear of comparison or a fear of being judged for what they do. Just take action, guys. The people that are killing it right now, and maybe it's you on this call, I don't know. They take action and then they adjust along the way.

They don't try to perfect whatever it is they're doing and then put it out there, whether it's an email, a, a webinar, social media, you name it, they're just doing it. And then they learn from what they did and they continuously make it better. They adapt, they evolve, they Tweak.

One thing I'll often get, for example, is I get a lot of people who email me because they're about to post a link on. Post on LinkedIn. So they'll send me it. They want me to review it because they're so afraid of what people are going to say about.

And I'll be totally honest with you guys, and I'm sorry if I did it to you. Often, I don't even look at what they sent me. I just reply with post it. Because I don't want you to overthink it.

Just take action. You know, Brian, you're in the academy. I'm looking at. You happen to be on my screen right now. We're working through a process right now, right, Brian? From marketing to sales.

Yeah.

And the number I said this in my. To my. My academy members this week, because this week was call number one of the second half of the academy. I said, guys, the difference between the advisors who are winning right now and who are not in this academy are the ones who are not thinking. They're just doing.

There is so much value in just doing.

I just brought up if you were on the webinar early, this got on early. You heard me talk about my webinar last week. It was a fricking fail.

I had three show up, but I realized it's because I forgot to send out the email.

Yeah, but the three you had were amazing.

I know. The three I had were beautiful human beings. I get it, I get it. But the point is, I didn't stop, guys, five years ago, it would have been like, oh, my God, what happened? I would have been afraid to run this week's webinar. Like, oh, boy. What? It's just like, no, it happened great. Next week, get the email out. Cool. So I want you guys to remember that if you're sitting there right now and you want to reach out to a potential prospect that you've maybe been a little scared to reach out to, you wanted to put yourself out on LinkedIn. You wanted to run a webinar. Heck, maybe you have a vision of starting a podcast. I don't know. Or, hey, public speaking. Our topic this week in the Academy is public speaking. Guys, just do them.

If you've never spoken in public before and you're, like, caught in this paralyzed feeling of needing to be perfect at it before doing, here's what I would challenge you to do. Actually go find a speaking gig before you ever write a talk.

Because that's going to force you to start doing.

So when I look at the people out there and I go back to this conversation of the gentleman I talked about that gave me that imposter syndrome, Jay just does. I tell him to do something nowadays and he's like, done, let's go. And again, if it sucked, it failed. In fact, his agency just hosted a dinner event two weeks ago. They didn't get the attendance they want. And he said, you know what? It was a good litmus test, a good practice run. We're going to kill it the next time. But they did, they did it. And so that's what I want to tell you guys. There's no magic, it's just action. So whatever it is you've been holding onto right now, whatever it is in your business that you've been holding back, cause that fear of maybe I need to be a little better before I do it, or I want it to be a little more perfect before I put it out there. Just I challenge everybody to do whatever that is, do it today. By the end of the day, Andy.

You know you pushed us to get that LinkedIn post and, and I thought about it quite a while and worked on it. Probably way too much overthinking it, but in two days I've had almost 700.

Impressions and 50 of them were decision makers.

Yep, that's the name of the game. Name of the game.

It's just doing so, I mean, that really invigorates you to motivates you to keep it up, you know, long term. Not a one time deal.

And I'll tell everybody on the call. And by the way of doing, I'm going to ask six people to do something right now. Jen, Randy, Matt, Tony, Michael and Ashley. I'm going to challenge you to turn your cameras on. Ooh.

Just having fun, guys. Here's another example of doing. If I could call somebody out on this webinar because I want you to get, if you're not connected to this gentleman on LinkedIn, I want you to go connect with him right now. Bob McCollins. Bob McCollins is on this webinar right now. Bob McCollins was in. My cat used to be called the Mastermind. He was in my academy. What now, Bob? A year and a half ago, two years, yes, sir. Bob came to one of my web academy calls and he had this idea of creating this brand called Bald Guy Bob.

And I said, Bob. I didn't. Again, I said, do it. What's the worst thing? It doesn't work. Do it. That has led Bob today to.

Have A position with a company that came probably as a result of your brand. Bob, I know you have no shortage of opportunities today, both with sales and other companies that want you. Because it's. Bob just came up with an idea and took action.

So that's. Again, I'm gonna. I don't wanna beat a dead horse, but I want you guys. I'm gonna keep saying it. Don't think, just take action. You'll be. You'll be so happy you did. And then adjust. Whatever, whatever you did, just adjust along the way.

The last mindset that I wanted to talk about today with you guys, again, just observing the clients I work with, the people I talk to, is.

They are masterful storytellers.

This isn't maybe so much of a mindset as it is a skill that they have developed.

When I look at our company, Complete Game Consulting, and people ask us what we do.

I realized about five or six years ago, everybody in this call, I think, is coming there. You either come from the benefits industry or property casualty.

What we do, especially in benefits, is part math, part storytelling.

If you can become a masterful storyteller.

Communicator, guys, your business is going to expand beyond your wildest dreams.

Where most of us get stuck, and I used to, horribly. Could we agree we all operate in a pretty complex industry.

To the general consumer. And by the way, our decision makers, our clients, they're part of the general consumer population.

If we make the complex more complex.

No one's ever going to do business with us. Right? How many of you stood in, have sat in on an open enrollment meeting? Maybe you're guilty of it. I know I used to be where we acronym everything to death because we work in acronyms.

And now the client, the employees look at us with glass eyes and they have zero clue what we're talking about.

If you carry your rep, explain their product lines.

Same, same thing. Brian. Yep. If you can be able to take.

The products you sell that are very complex to the general consumer and communicate them in a way that a kid could understand.

Guys, you will have more clients than you know what to do with. This was my own little epiphany. Just this Monday, I was working with a new client. We were starting their brand to work on their branding. And at the end of the call, the owner, the principal, looked at me, I said, so how did you like the call? How did it go?

He said, you just spoke to us like we were six years old.

And I kind of went like this, like, okay, is that a good thing or a Bad thing. And he's like, that was awesome. Because you've empowered us. We feel like we know how to do this now.

And that's when it hit me with even my own company, guys, the power of storytelling and communication.

So here's what I urge everybody to do. This is the game changer. If you can take whatever it is you sell.

And you can turn it into a story. And if you've been on my past webinars, if you've read the book Building a story brand, Every story is told in this format. There is a character who has a goal that has a problem keeping them from the goal. Therefore, they need a guide you who has a solution to help them avoid failure and have success. If you can take anything you sell and you put it into that story format, guys, it can take the most unsexy product, which most of us sell unsexy products, and turn it into a story the prospect can buy. It turns into a story the prospect becomes a part of.

That's what the top advisors are doing right now. They're masterful storytellers.

There's probably common connections we have that we know. We love them, we want to learn from them because they're good storytellers. They share concepts we use in the industry in a way that we go, huh?

Yeah, that makes all the sense in the world.

Guys. If you follow the story format that I just shared, that's what happens.

There's one last story I want to share, and then we'll go into Q and A that I want to drive home with the storytelling message. I listen. Anybody, Anybody read Steve Jobs autobiography?

They were talking about when Steve Jobs in the book, talk about when he came back into power at Apple, right? He got kicked out, came back, and that's when they narrowed their product selection from 300 products down to four. And he said, we're going to have four things. The iPod, the iPad, the iPhone, and Mac and the MacBooks. And the guy was relating the story, and the guy relating the story is a journalist. He's like, here's where I knew Steve Jobs was genius.

Not only is he a masterful storyteller, but he said.

I happened to be down in Columbia one time, the country, Columbia. And he's like, I was on a rural farm, third world, part of the country. This is a journalist. He goes, I'm writing my story on my iPad for the journal for the article. And this farm hand comes up to me, this kid about five or six years old.

And the kid was probably illiterate, didn't speak English and I handed him my iPad and in five minutes, he knew how to use the iPad.

That's why Steve Jobs is a genius. That's why Apple is worth. Are they. Have they hit a trillion? If not, they're damn close.

Guys, if you can storytell and take what we do and make it simple.

Prospects will take action.

Even down to, here's how you do business with us. Here's what the next steps look like to doing business with us. If you make it simple, they will believe they can do it, and they will do it.

So those are the three I want to talk about. The abundant mindset guys share. There's enough to go around. The second one is just do. Just start taking action. Quit thinking as much. And then the third thing is story communication. If you can practice and focus on taking what you do and making it simple through the power of story, you will have more prospects taking action and taking action with you. So we got five minutes left. Any questions? What questions you guys have or something you want to throw out to the group for collaboration? I see a lot of chats here.

Anybody throw a question? Andrew, you have a question?

Yeah, I do, man. So, one, I watched college baseball this weekend. And how long did you have to work on your pickoff move? Because I was highly unimpressed. So maybe that's another conversation.

But I want to skill my friend. Yes. All right, second one.

The real question is. So with this new firm I've been at for three months now, we have a person that's in the role of basically an sdr, what I've labeled sdr. Right. So sales, developmental rep. So this individual is setting meetings for me, and it makes me incredibly nervous.

Right. So noodle on that. Maybe we talk about that a later webinar, but I'm not quite sure how to use.

What makes you nervous?

That person. I don't know what their outreach looks like, what their cadence is, what their messaging is. And so when I get on the call, and typically we take our first one as a joint call, I'm wondering if that broker is like, all right, who do I listen to? This guy or this guy? Because this guy got to me.

Why is he anybody else? So I'm going to equate that SDR to a cold calling service in a way. Anybody here use a cold calling service?

I've tried it.

Okay, anybody here set appointments with cold calling themselves, even if you make your own calls? Yeah, for sure. I'll tell you guys, I've worked for a few agencies that had cold Calling services. And my number one frustration was, do they know me? Even though if they. Even though they said yes, do they know me yet? No. Right. They have no clue who you are. That's why the power of awareness is huge. But what I would do when I get on those calls is if I was not the one setting them, or even if I set them and they still have no clue who I am, the first question I would ask just to defuse it, is, I'm curious what intrigued you to take the call.

Because that simple question will tell you a lot. When I had a cold calling service and I asked that question, the unfortunate reality was, more times than not, they said, because the guy on the phone wouldn't leave me alone.

Great. This is going to be an interesting place to start this meeting from. But get a feel for why they even accepted your call, Andrew, even if it was the SDR setting it. And then I'll give you a good tone of where to go with the meeting.

Yep.

Any other questions, guys? That was a good question.

Here's something. I'm going to keep saying this, and I said this to the three that showed up last week, and they all three are still on this webinar this week. I'm going to give you guys a golden nugget right now. Who here sells health insurance that's on this call, raise your hand. Tony. I don't know if Tony does. I don't know. I know Ashley, I think is property casualty. Randy, I think you're in dental.

If I'm you right now, I am pivoting my product. We're talking about storytelling, right? I am pivoting my product right now around the messages involving retaining and retention, pending recession or inflation.

Guys, no one cares about health insurance right now. I hate to tell you.

I hear this a lot from my clients and people I talk to that they're not making decisions. They're not as concerned about their cost for health insurance cost. Yeah, you're right. But if you can pivot your product, your solution into, hey, with this recession potentially coming, here's how we can help. Oh, yeah. Or, hey, guys, you're struggling a little bit to find people. Here's how we can help. Even if your solution plays a small role in that, guys, they're going to start listening.

I mean, if you turn on, you turn on the news right now, what do we have? We have what they refer to as doom porn. Everything's doom.

All we hear is recession and how bad it's going to be. Right. Well, guess what? They're thinking about if I'm a CFO right now I'm sleep, I'm up at night because I'm filled with anxiety because I'm going, okay, are we going to have to make cuts financially? Are we going to have to cut people? I don't even know what the hell is it going to look like. You guys all have solutions that could help that in some way, shape or form?

I think so. That's what I would be talking about right now. If I'm an advisor, especially a benefits advisor if I'm a. Oh, go ahead, Brian.

Do you just. Let's say you have those three topics and you keep going through them. Just keep going through them and going through them. You just keep repeating them.

Are you thinking on like something like on social media or something?

I'm thinking all the marketing emails, email, social because they're not always listening when you're talking. I mean that's the challenge is talking and the status quo is the biggest competitor. It's not the guy down the street.

Number one lesson, this goes back to mindset number two, just do take action.

There's a reason you have to keep saying the things over and over and over again. You never know when it's going to hit them. Right? Anybody know who Gary Vaynerchuk is? Gary V. He is one of the top in marketing social media. He says it all the time. People hate me after a while because they say, Gary, you say the same thing over and over. Yeah, because I don't know when it's going to hit you. Today you might not even filter it, but 12 weeks from now you might be like, damn, he said exactly what I needed to hear. That's why guys, don't judge what you're putting out there. Just say it over and over and over and over again because it's going to hit the right person at the right time and you don't know when that is.

So. Good question, Brian, but I would go back to wrap up the webinar. Guys, think about these current event topics right now that are really weighing on the minds of your decision makers and figure out how your product's going to fit into that and you're going to get their attention.

I've told every client of mine I'll share with you guys because it's a matter of who does it, who doesn't. If I'm in benefits right now, I'm going to throw out a webinar when the topic is going to be how to recession proof your benefits.

So any last question before I let you guys go.

Thank you for the invitation, as always. Every week as.

Can you talk now? Every week? Every Thursday. Now, next Thursday, letting you guys know. We're going to be a half hour later than normal, but you'll get the announcement.

Awesome, guys. Hey, if you need anything, reach out. Our next Academy is starting August 3rd. If any of you guys want to know about the academy, it's coming up. We accept 20 and cap it. Wendy, you know about the League of Their Own. Ashley, if you want to know about the League of Their Own. Jen, if you want to know about the League of Their Own, which is our upcoming women's community, let me know. All right. Go kick. Thank you, guys. Hey, guys.