3 Things You Must Do To Set Your Prospects Up For The Perfect Intro Meeting

Foreign.

It is 11 o', clock, Mountain 1 Eastern, 10 Pacific, wherever the heck you are. All right, guys, what I'm going to go through today, first of all, thank you for being here. What I'm going to go through today is what I feel is the perfect intro meeting. Now, Gabe, I see you're on here. You got a little taste of this just the other day.

And so what I am going to go through is actually at a high level. What I think it's a great how you can stand out when you are. When you scheduled an intro meeting with a client with a prospect. Because here is what everybody struggles with when I look at most agencies today. And we'll save if you guys got any questions, I always reserve about five minutes at the end for some Q and A. So save the questions or write the question down. You can put it in the chat box. We'll get to it at the end. If somebody's got a lot of noise behind them too. If you could hit mute, that would be great. Awesome. So, guys, here's what I see with most agencies today when it comes to setting appointments with prospects. A lot of agencies still use cold calling services, right. Or they get a bunch of lead lists and they may make a bunch of calls. The problem with those, it's one thing that you get the meeting right, which is great. You got the meeting set with the prospect. The prospect has said yes. But here's the problem.

You're probably still walking into the intro meeting and they have no clue who you are. Yes. So there's a meeting set that you walk in. They might still be sitting at the table defensive, with their arms crossed because they're not sure if they even want to talk to you right now. I know when I worked for agencies in the past that had cold calling services, one of my number one frustrations. Could somebody hit mute?

One of my number one frustrations was I would walk into the. Into the meeting and the first question I would ask if I knew the meeting was set with a cold calling service is, so I'm curious what intrigued you to take the call? And eight times out of ten they'd say, the guy wouldn't leave me alone until I said no. Until I said yes. And so I knew I was already in an uphill battle trying to convince this prospect who doesn't know who I am. They might not want to be there, but they felt too guilty about saying no. So what I did is I said, okay, I have got to develop a better standard operating procedure so that I can create More impact, make these intro meetings more impactful.

And so what I'm going to share with you is what I did for myself. Just take that intro meeting. What we're going to start with is the trigger. The trigger is prospect says yes to you. You got a meeting on the calendar. Great. What do you do?

And what I'm going to go through goes against the grain that our industry is used to. Because some of the things I am going to share, I used to be afraid to do. I don't know if anybody can show a hand. I remember when I was afraid to even reach out to the prospect prior to the meeting to confirm it, because if I sent them an email to confirm it, that gives them a chance to cancel it. Anybody ever been there?

So what I did is I said, screw that. I'm going to find a way to stand out. So that's what I'm teaching today is how do you stand out even before you have actually conducted the first meeting with the prospect? Because if there is one analogy I want you guys to remember today, it is this. And most of you have heard me share this before.

All of us are probably old enough to remember a time when we used to go to the grocery store with mom and dad and we'd go down the milk aisle and we only had a couple options. 1%, 2% whole. And then this thing called skim came around. Pretty boring stuff. And then all of a sudden, one day we go down that aisle and there's almond milk and we're like, what the hell is that? I gotta try that.

That's what we want you guys to look like.

When you're setting up that first meeting with the prospect. Before that, before you've even walked into their conference room. We want them going, I got to hear what these guys have to say.

So.

How are we going to set up the perfect intro meeting? The first thing you got to do before the meeting even starts.

Remember the trigger is prospect says yes.

The next thing I'm doing.

When they say yes is I'm going to LinkedIn.

And I'm connecting with them on LinkedIn.

Now there's gonna be some prospects who just aren't active on LinkedIn. I get it. But here's why I want to connect with them on LinkedIn. If they're any remotely any active on LinkedIn. Your LinkedIn profile is your personal website.

So if I connect with that prospect prior to meeting with them and they've never met me before, now they can see my face. Facial recognition.

So now they at least Know what I look like, who I am, they can check out my profile. If I'm creating content like you should, they can check out my content.

But the first thing I'm doing is I'm connecting them with them on LinkedIn. Now the next part can be a one or two part process. I'm going to send an email.

What I call the welcome email.

Now I might just send an email right after the trigger of them saying, yes, saying, hey, Andy here, looking forward to meeting with you on Thursday, December 16th at 1pm All I'm doing in the email is confirming the meeting and just saying, hey, excited to meet with you. Now if you want to do that in one step, what I would challenge you to do and add to that email and this is could be part two as well, if you wanted to do this in two emails.

Is I am adding two things to that email.

I am adding an agenda and I'm adding a video of me. Now there are plenty of services out there, guys, today that you can use to embed videos into emails. You've got Bombbomb, Vidyard, Send, Spark, you name it, there's plenty out there. What I want to do is with this email, I want to send them an agenda of exactly what we're going to go over. And by the way, if you have a good sales process, that agenda should be the same every single time. You just insert the new logo of the new prospect, that's all. So I'm going to send an agenda, I'm going to attach an agenda to that email, but I'm also going to embed a video of me saying, hey, looking forward to meeting with you. I attached the agenda in the email. We're going to be going over this, this and this. I'll see you tomorrow. I'm sending that about 24 to 48 hours before the meeting. Now again, you can send the first email right when the meeting set and then send that second welcome email 24 to 48 hours advance or you just do it as one big email, doesn't matter. Here's the important part of this, guys. If I just connected with you on LinkedIn facial recognition.

Now I send you an email which set tells you exactly what we're going to talk about when we get together. I've included a video so you get to see me and hear from me, so you get a feel for my personality.

I'm already starting to stand out in your eyes. You're already getting a feel for who I am. You're coming to the meeting prepared versus what most of us do is we walk in the meeting because we're so damn happy. We have a meeting. We don't prepare them at all. And now we walk in and they're like this.

I guarantee if you start here before the meeting even hits go, you're already going to prepare that prospect for a great meeting.

So I want to give you, I want you guys to give that a try. What's your agenda for your intro meetings, discovery meetings, whatever you call them. And I urge you to start including video content. Videos. Welcoming them and telling them exactly what you're going to go over. Prepare them to be ready to prepare them to know exactly what they're going to be talking about.

I have a client right now who has actually taken this to the next level, and I absolutely love it. He sends out a welcome video. Not only does he welcome saying, hey, looking forward to meeting with you tomorrow, he actually walks through a little presentation about what makes them different, what are they doing to help employers that nobody else is doing. When he sends that out, guess what happens? He has prospects. Asking him when he walks in the door saying, okay, whatever you showed me on the video, show me how to do that.

He's already starting intro meetings with the prospect going, yes, we want that. Show me how to do that. You talk about getting an AOR in one meeting. That's how you do it. So set yourself up, set your prospect up for the perfect meeting. Now we're at the meeting.

Let's call this discovery meeting intro meeting. I don't care what you call it.

The question I always get asked is, okay, cool, what's on the agenda?

Here's what shouldn't be on the agenda, guys.

You walk in, first thing you ask is, tell me a little bit about your business.

Guys, with the Internet access we have today, the data we have on the Internet, the research we can do before we walk in, if you ask the prospect, tell me about your business. In their head, they just heard you didn't do anything to prepare for this meeting. You should have been able to go on my website, Google us, whatever you need to do there. You should already know a lot about what we do.

So number one, make sure you do your research so you're not walking in, asking them right away, tell me about your business. But here's what you should be talking about. Yes, you have to connect with them, introduce yourself, let them introduce yourself. Then you've got to start fact finding. Now, this isn't a shocker for anybody.

But the question I ask is what questions Are you going to ask.

The questions we don't want to ask? If you've been on my webinars in the past few weeks is what's your X date? What carry are you with? Give me a census. How many employees do you have? That's what the typical broker asks. The questions you should be asking, what's your number one goal right now?

What would it mean to achieve it? I know some of you are watching. You've heard me say this a dozen times.

What's the number one challenge keeping you from that goal? And how is it affecting your company right now?

And here's why those four questions are so important, guys. If you know your brand message, if you know your ideal prospect, which I know, some of you better know this because I've worked with you.

What they just gave you is four very powerful elements of the story you're going to share in the proposal, the customized plan, whatever you want to call you, coming back and asking for the business. What they just shared with you is their goal.

What they also shared with you is their destination. What would it mean to achieve the goal?

They also told you what the problem is that's keeping them from the goal.

And then they shared with you what failure looks like today.

How is that challenge impacting you today? Those four parts of a story format are very powerful. The goal, the destination, the challenge, and the current failure. Your job, if you know the answers to those questions, is now to figure out how your solution fits into their story.

So, number one, I'm fact finding the right way. I'm finding out what their goals, their challenges, the impacts, the negative impacts are having right now. The second thing I'm going to do.

Is I'm going to give what I might refer to as the State of the Union. I call it the do you believe what we believe?

Why this presentation is so important, especially in benefits guys, is can we agree that many times our prospects don't even know what their problem is? They might not even. They don't know what they don't know. Can we agree?

So if you're a broker, or I should not say broker, a consultant who specializes in cost containment, you help your clients control their costs, save money.

I need to show them why they're not saving money. Right now. I need to let some truths out because there's a really good chance my prospect just doesn't know what they don't know. They think Blue Cross Blue Shield is the best thing ever because why not? They're the biggest, but we have got to get them to understand what's actually happening to them today. So I call this my state of the union do you believe what I believe? Here's why I call it the do you believe what I believe presentation.

I don't want to work with every prospect. Not every prospect's a fit for me. It's the same way to not today with my coaching business. Not every advisor agency is a fit for me. But when I give this presentation.

It allows me to filter out the good ones from the bad ones really quick. Because if I give you this little presentation after I've done some fact finding.

Two things are going to happen. If I show you exactly why your insurance costs keep going up year after year, why the carriers don't want to help you win, why the healthcare system doesn't want to help you win, why the way we've been paid as an industry hasn't helped you win at that moment. If you don't understand what your problem is, I can't help you.

So number one, you're either in a position where you just don't get it, you, the prospect, don't get it, we're probably not a good fit.

Or the prospect is pissed off. And that's exactly where I want because now they're motivated.

And if they're motivated, I'm going to walk them through my process of how I help them solve their problem. So the do you believe what I believe presentation, the state of the Union, whatever you want to call it, is for me to tell the story of the typical client I work with. My typical client wants this goal, but here's why they can't get it. Now I'm going to share with you why they can't get it. And now I'm going to show you the solution, my process that helps them get it. And I'm going to share a case study of a client that's done it.

It's storytelling, guys. Storytelling 101. The ideal client I work with has this goal, but they can't achieve it because this challenge, therefore they've reached out to us with this solution, our process, and it helps them create this result. Let me show you an example of a client who's done it.

So now they know exactly who our or my ideal client is and they can either put themselves in that bucket or they don't. Again, it is a great way to filter out the good ones from the bad ones. Because worst case, guys, if the first meeting I real. In the first meeting, the discovery meeting, I realized they're not a fit, no harm no foul. I wasted one meeting. So many of us waste time trying to push a bad prospect to the finish line, and they're never going to get there.

So you got to use that first meeting to filter out the good ones from the bad ones. And I want you to make this one mindset shift. In the intro meetings, your job is to interview them as much as they interview you.

We have spent too many years, yours truly included, begging for business.

So, hey, it's an opportunity. Hey, it's revenue. Go get it. And we spend that first meeting begging to take it to the next step. Your job is to actually have that abundant mindset, knowing you're not a fit for everybody. There's a chance they're not going to be a fit for you. My job is to interview them as much as they're interviewing me. You go with that attitude, guys, your first meetings are going to be a hell of a lot more effective. The last thing I'm going to do in an intro meeting.

Is I'm going to walk the prospect through an assessment. Now, with the clients I work with, we build out assessments. That's going to give you the opportunity to really figure out if this prospect is a good fit. Where do they stand with their benefits? I know we have a couple of property casualty advisors on here, their pnc, the risks.

You got to figure out where they're at right now. I love asking scale 1 to 10 type questions because I want to know how confident they are with what they're doing today.

But here's what this does as well. Guys, I want you to. I'm going to review or rewind this really quick.

If I have this process, from the minute the prospect says yes to a meeting, where I go to them and I connect with them on LinkedIn, I send them a welcome email. I may send a second email or all in one, where I include the agenda for the meeting, a little welcome video. I walk in the door for the discovery meeting with agenda. I follow agenda, and then I walk them through an assessment. You know what's going through their head. Holy crap. These guys are prepared.

They have a pretty legit process.

Who here has ever found themselves trying to recreate the wheel with far too many prospects?

Guys, your job is to make this thing rinse and repeat.

And so if you can go into the intro meeting going, okay, every single intro meeting is the same. It has the same agenda. Because I'm interviewing them and you gather the right information, you share the presentation, the State of the Union, and then you walk them through an Assessment. By the way, the assessment does not need to be nine pages. It can be seven questions.

But if you have that defined process you walk people through every single time.

Your meetings are going to go better. After the assessment is done, that prospect's going to be more motivated to take the next step.

And they're going to look at you and say, wow, these folks have a defined, have a legit process. And here's the best thing. If you, if some of you represent agencies with multiple sales producers, they're all running the same process, then they're street, it's streamlined.

So take this to heart, guys, as we open the next year. I know you may not have a ton of new business activity between now and the holidays, but as you go into Q1 next year, go, okay, what am I doing from the minute the prospect says yes to create my own little or our agency's standard operating procedure that's going to walk or set the prospect up for the perfect meeting. And when that meeting's done, they're motivated to take the next step because they're going to want to know what's next. Now here's a quick extra credit about what's next. You get the prospect right here. The assessment's done, they're ready to take the next step. You're going to come back with a customized plan. Don't bog them down with I need to collect reams and reams of data. The harder you make it for them to do business with you, the more likely they're going to say, no, thanks.

I know some of you are going to have to gather data to come back with a customized plan or a proposal. Some of you might have to collect medical apps. I get it, but I see too many advisors that are going, well, we need to collect this, this, this, this, this, and this. We're going to come back with a huge financial analysis. All they're hearing on their end is a lot of work. No thanks.

Guys. Just make it easy. First meeting, gather the simple data you need to come back with a customized plan. That's it. But the first meetings are so key because if you don't do it right, what happens is you leave the meeting excited and then you never hear from them again. And so when you jump on your next sales meeting with your team, they ask you, where is this prospect in the pipeline? They're like, I don't know what happened. We had a good first meeting, I thought.

But if you use these benchmarks, starting all the way back to when they say yes, and you create a Standardized operating procedure. From the minute they say yes to the finish of the intro meeting, I promise you, you will stand out and you'll have more prospects taking the next step. So with that being said, guys, Q and A, you can put it in the chat box what questions you guys have.

Or just unmute yourself and ask away.

Don't be shy.

Hey Andy, quick question. Yeah, I was, my question's on when you were talking about the scale from 1 to 10 type questions, what can you give me a couple examples of what that would include or what that would look like?

I'll give you two real quick examples. If I knew one of my ideal, if I knew my ideal client was one that was probably going either already self funded or going to be because that's when I do my best work, I would ask a question about on a scale around like this scale 1 to 10.

Rate your level, rate your appetite for risk. One being we hate it, we want to avoid it at all costs. 10 being no, we're absolutely cool with risk because if they gave it a three, I just, I know they're risk averse. So if I want them to move to self funding, I'm going to have to tell the story a different way because I know I'm dealing with a risk averse team or decision maker. The other reason I love the questions is something like this scale 1 to 10, how confident are you that your employees are buying their meds at the lowest price possible? 1 being I have no confidence, I have no idea. 10 being 100% confident. What I loved about that question is I get somebody answered eight, nine, I'd be like wow, they must have a cool solution. And then I'd say, well why did you give it a nine well worth Blue Cross Blue Shield, aren't we getting our drugs for the lowest price possible? And I go, okay, you don't know. I'd say that in my head, not to them. But now I know they don't know the answer. They think that Blue Cross is giving them the best deal. I know they're not. So when I come back with my plan, I know how to explain this to them. The purpose of the assessment questions, especially the scale one to ten is number one. It gives them a score. Number two you can come back with why did you give that that score? And you'll gather a lot of information from that.

That's awesome. Thanks so much.

You bet. Couple other questions for an intro prospecting email. What is a good approach to the email subject line? Just say, hey, looking forward to Meeting with you. That's what I'd put in the subject line. Looking forward to meeting with you. There's no need to be fancy. There's no perfect script. Guys on emails. Anybody who sells scripts, scripted emails, I get frustrated with. Just keep them short and to the point. When you write emails, here's a little tip for everybody. Whether you're trying to get a prospect's attention or writing an email to a client, short paragraphs, no more than two sentences per paragraph. Keep a lot of white space in your emails. When I open an email and I see the super long email, super long paragraph, I'm deleting it. Keep them short. Sweet. David, how do you approach this when you're early on in your business and have very few case studies to communicate? Don't share a case study or you don't need to share a case study, David, but. Or if you have peers who have them, use them. There's nothing wrong with sharing case studies from peers that are doing the same thing. When I was part of a mastermind group, we would do that all the time. I'd share a case study of a peer in my mastermind who got a great result.

If I'm using the same strategies, but I just don't have my own results yet, use somebody else's who has. It's the same thing.

Anything else? Guys got four minutes.

Was this helpful?

Hey, Andy. Yeah, I just wanted to kind of wrap or go back to the pre meeting where we're discussing the agenda and then the video to welcome them. You know, I think that that's.

Anthony, Anthony, hold on one sec guys. Hold on for three minutes too, because I got something I want to share at the end, but go ahead, Anthony.

I just wanted to say, you know, sending out those welcome videos are so, so powerful. I mean, you can get across in your message real quickly what you want to talk about and that will just.

Multiply that opportunity to close. Like you said, when you walk in, it's. It's amazing how much they are ready to do business with you because they've already been.

Excited about what you're about to talk about. It's not just like, oh, these, he's not just like somebody else. So I just wanted to say that.

Appreciate it. Oh, that's your exact. That's the whole point. And I knew when I was doing this that there's not an email I can write that's going to excite somebody. But I know if I can say it, excuse me, I can say it. I'm going to I could excite them. So that's why I introduced video into my emails because I'm like, I want them to see me and get to know, you know, get a feel for my personality. And I know if I can say what I want to say, it's going to have the most impact. That's why, guys, I love video. Anytime you can use video, it is the most impactful. Because remember, sales is who knows you, likes you and trusts you. Video is the best way to get somebody to know you and like you real quick. And so even if you're afraid of video, I urge you to get on it. What I do want to share, guys, is I did put, I just hit out the link. If you look in the chat box, where did it. Oh, there it goes. You got to go up to 1126. I've got my next broker branding academy coming up January 19th and it's for benefit advisors and vendor partners to the industry. I cap it at 20. We're 50% full right now and the other 10 seats are going to go quick.

What we're working on in this academy is literally from the beginning of building your brand message for the right prospect. Who are you going after all the way to the proposal that we just worked or we worked on the intro meeting. If you want more information, my link to my calendar is in the chat box. Let's schedule a call. I'll share you the. Share the details with you. It's 12 calls over 12 weeks, all recorded. Guys, this is how you're going to win next year. You got to have a system from the moment you're prospecting all the way to that final ask in your proposals. You got to have a system that you can rinse and repeat. But more importantly, you have to know who you're going after and what you're saying to them. If you don't know who you're going after, you're going to after. You're going to go after everybody and you can't win that way because if you go after everybody, your message is going to be Manila, it's going to be bland, and it's going to fall on deaf ears.

So with that being said, guys, last I'll summarize this again. When the prospect says yes, connect with them on LinkedIn, send them a welcome email or a second one that prepares them for the intro meeting. Include video, include an agenda. And when you walk in, follow the agenda to the T fact find, talk about why they're not winning today. Remember, they don't know what they don't know, and then walk them through an assessment so you get a good feel for where they stand today. It makes your whole process look legit. And remember, you're interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing you. If you do that, you will have more people go through the pipeline. You'll bring more people to the finish line. So you guys can do what you do best. Close them and hit the home run. So with that being said, guys, we are right at 11:30, I promise. Be done in 30 minutes. If you got any more questions, you know where I'm at. Email me, shoot me on LinkedIn, or click that calendar button in the chat box and let's chat.

Awesome, guys. Have a good afternoon.