Agency Freedom: E164: Andy Neary On Playing A Complete Game

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Welcome to the Agency Freedom Podcast. We help you find your freedom in every aspect of your business. Captivity comes in many forms, from stale, ineffective sales and marketing tactics to outdated technology and workflows to teams who are performing far less than their true capabilities. On this show, you'll hear compelling conversations with your peers in the insurance industry, as well as from top shelf professionals in related fields who are leading the charge towards what's coming next. This is the Agency Freedom Podcast. Let's go.

Yeah, it always goes like that. This is the good stuff. You know, we just get started in a conversation.

Well, it's. When I started building a brand, I had people look at me and they're like, what are you doing? Like, we don't do this in the industry. What are you, egotistical? Trying to become famous? And I'm like, listen, if I'm going to win business, I got to build credibility. And I know where this whole online presence thing is going to. And when people look me up, they're going to find a lot of stuff. And when they find a lot of stuff, they're going to be like, huh, this is the guy we should hire. Mm. And it's. That's. I mean, that's what we do as a business. But it's still one of the biggest challenge to get people to understand is like, this is why this is important. Doing this content is as important as making a cold call.

I mean, 100%, man. Because, you know, to borrow from my friend Ryan Handley, who you may know, you know, he, he made the comment one time is like, when you have really good content sitting out there, that's easy to find on YouTube or wherever it happens to be. It's like a tiny little salesforce that is working for your company 24 7, 365. Because someone can be sitting there, you know, in their bed, at their house, just searching for something. Just at 11pm you're not at your office, but your content's working for you.

That's something. You know, I'm glad you brought that up because that's something I don't talk about enough is your content's actually working for you 24 hours a day.

Love it. Yeah, we started the episode by not starting the episode. We just, you know, one of these days, man, I would just hit record the moment that we get on and then edit it down for the beginning of the episode. Because, I swear, 80% of the time somebody said something, I was like, shoot, I wasn't recording yet. Why did you say something really good before I hit record? So. But here we are, so might as well start the episode officially. Welcome, boys and girls, to another episode episode of the Agency Freedom Podcast. We help insurance professionals move from captivity to freedom. And, yes, I will put all of that in the episode, because we don't edit stuff around here. We give it to you raw and live. And that's just how it is. He is Andy Neary. I don't know what your title is. Grand Poobah Master Consultant or something. He is Andy Neary of Complete Game Consulting and Major League Mindset. Andy, welcome to the show, man.

Thanks, James. It's excited to be here. Yeah, I loved how we started that. Just went right into dialogue and started hitting recording. I. I went on a passionate tirade on Monday during our team meeting about what we do and why we do it. And then I. At the end, when I got done, my team said, why didn't we record that?

Oh, yeah, we just. Within the last three weeks or so, two young ladies on my team basically said, we want to start a TikTok. And I said, okay, cool. Go for it. I was like, I'm not doing it. I don't know anything about TikTok. I'm 40 years old. I am not the TikTok guy. They're like, well, you have to do stuff when we tell you to, like, skits or dances or, like, making improv stuff because you're funny. I was like, I will do whatever you tell me to do. Just don't make me responsible for coming up with it. So since then, it's like, oh, shoot. Addy is always recording something. If anything that goes down, I have to be mindful. It's like someone's recording this. So every little thing, every silly comment, every little tchotchke or whatever that happens in the office is like, oh, this might be on TikTok later. So. I totally get what you're saying there, man. Someone's always watching on our teams, right? So, Andy, what's the story here? You used to be in the practice of insurance. You used to be on the agency side, and then now, remind me, were you a professional athlete? Were you a coach? Were you a mentor or something? I forget what you. You and I very briefly spoke, like, two months ago, and I'm trying to remember what it was.

Yeah, no, after college, I played college baseball at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. And then I did spend a couple years pitching in the Milwaukee brewers organization. And when I realized pro baseball was not going to last forever and the brewers said, we don't need you anymore, I moved on to my business career and I found myself in insurance industry like most people, not by design. I had a friend tell me I should try this thing called insurance. I started my insurance career with Federated Insurance, who a lot of people on the property casualty side probably know. Yep, great training program. Got your teeth cut there. Doing the door to door in industrial parks. And then I ended up on the independent side where I sold property casualty and benefits, but gravitated towards benefits. And then something really interesting happened. 2014, Amy and I decided we're going to move to from Wisconsin to Colorado. And I found myself in a market where nobody knows who I am. And so I said, I have got to build a book of business a different way. I cannot just resort to cold calling and pounding the pavement. My Federated stuff, right? So I said, I'm going to try this thing called a personal brand. And in 2014, James, people are like, what are you doing? We don't do this in the industry. What are you trying to become famous? I said, but I got to get a lot of people to know who I am as quickly as I can. And lo and behold, it worked. I was able to build a nice book of business in Colorado. And then fast forward 2019, I had some colleagues reach out and be like, hey, can you help me do what you did? Like, I want to do that same thing. And I realized what started as a side hustle was like, wait, there's a, there's an opportunity here because there's a lot of people in this industry who do not know how to build credibility with their prospects. And this is why they keep coming in second place. Even though they have more knowledge, they have more strat, better strategies, they still come in second place. Why? They don't have credibility. So I'm going to be the guy to teach them how to build credibility. And that's how complete game consulting was born. And In January of 21, I stopped selling. And here we are today. This is all I do.

January of 21 was an interesting time in history because we're, you know, less than a year into the onset of the COVID global pandemic. I imagine that some of that probably was influencing your decision one way or the other. For those of you that haven't been in the game for a long Time. This is my 13th year in insurance. I've seen a lot, a lot of trends, lots of comings and goings. I don't know what the landscape was from your perspective, Andy. I feel like there is an absolute tidal wave of consultants coming into the industry now. A lot of them are either current or former agency principals that have varying levels of credibility.

Varying levels of good things on the resume size of their agency and headcount in their office and the types of accounts that they were working with. You know, from my perspective, as someone who's not a full time paid consultant, I speak from time to time, but no one is currently paying me to consult them for anything. It just seems like such a crowded space in 2024. It wasn't like that in 21. But post Covid, it's so much easier to throw something up on a website and call yourself a consultant. What's your take on all of that and how in the world are you different?

That's a great question. Little did I know, and I hate saying this way, because Covid was bad, but it was a blessing to our business from the standpoint that it forced people online. People weren't picking up the phones as much anymore. Right. And all of a sudden everything we did was right here on these laptops. And that's really what accelerated our business because people said, whoa, I've got to have a better online presence. And that's how we can build credibility today. You can build credibility before you ever walk in the door. That's the beauty of what you can do when you do it right.

Yep.

So when I look at what makes you different, we. I tell our prospects, our clients, I don't care what market you're in today, if you are in insurance, you are dealing with a ton of noise. And I heard this the other day, James. I thought this was a great way of looking at it. I was listening to a podcast from another gentleman that does branding and he said, when people get stuck with, well, how am I going to stand out? The market is so noisy. He's like, think about all the news stations we listen to. Right. Whether you listen to Fox, cnn, cbs, they're all delivering the same news. But it's how they deliver that makes you go, I want to watch Fox or I want to watch cnbc.

Yeah.

So even just because you have competition talking about the same things, it's how you say what you say, the stories you tell that are going to get the prospects to want to tune into you. So regardless of noise, you have to put stuff out there. You have to have a presence because depending on how you put that message out there and how who you're trying to attract, you will get the right people who tune into your station.

Love it. Now, before we jump in and talk and shop, because I have some pretty strong opinions on the whole branding and content game, as you can imagine. I'd love to get your, your backstory, you know, what happened in between those, those waypoints. You, you ran through probably close to 15, 20 years of history in about two minutes just a second ago. What was it about? Federated and just the insurance industry. There's so many former college and professional athletes that have found their way to the insurance and financial services world, whether it's life through MassMutual or Northwestern Mutual that happens. New York life, MassMutual and Northwestern seem to be extremely good at recruiting former athletes. So many. But then even on the PNC side, a lot of former athletes. There's a lot to be said about that. But I'd love to get your story in between going into the baseball world and just that chapter of your life. How in the world do you say this? This is how I'm going to spend my time?

It's a great question. What I'll share about my baseball story quickly with people is I get a lot of people, James, who say, man, you got to play pro baseball, spent a couple years in the minors. That must have been cool. The thing about my baseball story that I don't share all the time is it was great to get that opportunity, but I also didn't reach my full potential. And so though I was blessed to have the opportunity, I know I could have been so much better. And the reason my pro career did only lasted a couple years is because every day I played the game in fear. Fear of comparison, fear of failure and fear of judgment. And when you're a free agent. I was a free agent. I was not a high draft pick. It's easy to live that way because every bad outing on the mound as a free agent could be your last outing. And so you lived with this. I have to be perfect today. At least I know I did. And that fear.

It actually impacted the first decade of my insurance career. I still lived with the same fears of judgment, comparison and failure. I got in the business honestly, because a family friend said if you come into this business and you make it, you will make a lot of money and have a lot of schedule freedom. I'm like, sounds good to me. And I think that's how a lot of people get in, James. Right. Nobody. Very few people get in this business by design, unless they're second generation. Maybe they went into college, went to college for risk management.

Yep.

But a lot of people get in because they're sold on the money and therefore they come in without a good plan. They want to make as much money as fast as they can. And the sad thing is they. It's easy to get burnt out as quickly as you got excited.

Yeah. I love the way that I forget who it was. I can't credit them correctly. It's like insurance is the world's greatest get rich slow scheme.

Just like if you think you're going to get rich quick in this industry, oh man, you're in for a rude awakening. Is it amazing? Yeah, it is, but it's going to take a while.

I still remember getting interviewed by Federated and they hand you this brochure and you open it up, it's a threefold brochure. And right in the middle it says, average marketing rep for Federated makes. I think it was like $147,000. And that was 2003. I was like, cool, this is awesome. And I still think about that because I remember about three years into it, I'm like, you know, there was one thing they missed in that brochure that I average tenure. Not even that. Oh, by the way, to make 147, you're gonna have to work your butt off.

Yeah. You're gonna be working 85 hours a week.

100. And that's honestly, at that time in my career, that was something that wasn't part of my repert was busting my tail. And so that's why I fluttered for the first decade of my career, because I didn't want to put the work in. I thought this was, hey, you told me I'd stick around and make a lot of money. Where's the money? And I didn't want to put in the work. I didn't want to do what it takes to make the calls and all that stuff. And that's why I was a very, very low, below average producer for 10 years.

You know, it's funny that you and I have that in common. You know, I, I really found myself with risk. Well, I was a farmer's agent for six and a half years. And a lot of people that I talk to, when they hear that chapter of my story, when I tell them, I mean, I was average, the definition of mediocre and forgettable as a farmer's agent. I wouldn't have been on any stage anywhere. I wouldn't have been a keynote speaker at a conference. I wouldn't have been an author of a book. Not wouldn't have. I wasn't any of those things. And I was slightly above average. And I didn't have a team, I didn't have a nice office, I didn't have a studio, I didn't have a niche specialization. I didn't have anything. It wasn't until we were forced to look in the mirror and my wife was like, what are you doing? You're really unhappy. And it was like, well, if I'm going to sell this agency and start a new one, let's do it right this time. Well, let's be a lot more intentional and to your point, let's be really methodical about the work that we put in and how we build it because I don't know how your first 10 years was. My first six and a half years was kind of dead fish floating downstream. I was going with the momentum around me and wasn't really creating anything unique at all.

I just started sharing part of this story recently in my keynote talks. So I actually was let go of federated into I left, but was basically about to be fired because I was terrible at selling life insurance. And their whole promotional model was built on selling life insurance even though we sold PNC and benefits and everything else. So I knew I the writing was on the wall. So I left and I went to work for a PNC agency and I started their benefits division. And by 2011, James, I was done. I'm like, I hate this. That was a one man show. All of a sudden this thing called the Affordable Care act was starting to come around. I'm like, I'm done. This is stupid. And I wasn't selling a whole lot. I was selling a bunch of small groups. So I remember in July of 2011 walking into my boss's office that I'm quit, I'm done now. I took two weeks off and another agency in the area reached out and said, hey, we're in need of an account exec. Are you interested? And it took me to park my ego and take a step back and get out of sales and go into account executive work. I was there for three years and then in 2014 is when Amy and I decided to move and I went back into a producer role. Had I not gone through that four, three, four year journey, I don't think I'd be here today. Because when we moved out to Colorado and I said, now I'M selling again. Just like when you started your agency, I said, I cannot do it the way I used to. Yeah, I have got to do something different. And that's when content became a huge piece of my strategy. And that was a decade ago.

Love it now. You were doing content before content was cool. And, gosh, it seems like an absolute eternity ago. 2014 was my second year in the insurance industry, and I started doing video in 2016. I was still ahead of the curve, but you beat me by at least a couple years, it sounds like. But there was definitely some element of, am I crazy? Like, am I. Am I insane for doing this? Like, is this just an ego fluff? Because I was literally the only agent that I knew at that time. I didn't have a community. I didn't have these masterminds and these groups and whatever. None of that existed for me at the time. I was the definition of a lone ranger. It was kind of sad to think about, honestly, but nobody was doing that back then. There were not programs teaching you how to do stuff. I mean, everybody was kind of figuring it out as they went. Like, for crying out loud, they didn't even have, like, Facebook ads were not even really a thing yet. Like, 2014, 2015 is when the Facebook ads took off. Like, we didn't even have ads back then. Like, what a concept. You could still have organic traffic on Facebook pages back then. That's how long ago it was before they clamped all of that down and Zuckerberg monetized every little thing.

Yeah. No, you're absolutely right. I mean, when I look back on my journey, my first content consisted of LinkedIn articles. That's how I started my content journey was 10 years ago. I started writing articles on LinkedIn. And I remember what happened. My first moment of like, huh, this is interesting. How this works is I had people just like you, James, kind of look at me like, what are you doing, man? Like, let's go sell some insurance.

And what I did, I started two things, actually. I started writing LinkedIn articles, and then I started an email campaign. Now, you'll laugh at how I started an email campaign, because back then, 10 years ago, email platforms weren't really a thing either. And I started manually sending out a monthly newsletter to my prospects. And what I realized was when. When I was writing these articles and I was sending out these newsletters, when I would be out networking or I'd be at an event like a SSHRM conference where HR professionals hang out, people recognized me. They're like, hey, I saw your stuff on LinkedIn, that's really cool. Or, hey, I get your emails. Thank you. The stuff you're sharing is really valuable. And all of a sudden, what happened? I was like, wow, wait a second. This is. This is exactly what I'm trying to do. It's making me known amongst these people. And so when I decided to reach out with a call or a direct email, I was having more success getting them to say yes. And then I took my content strategy to the next level in 2016. So after I started doing articles, running email campaigns, I said this public speaking thing I think could be a really big thing for my career. And in 2016, I decided that I wanted to go all in on it. So I hired a speaking coach and I joined a speakers academy. And that's really where the content took off. Because all of a sudden, I found myself on stages in front of prospects. And, you know, you speak, James, when you're in front of this, of an audience on stage, you have all the credibility you will ever need. And all of a sudden, I was turning cold suspects into warm prospects in a matter of 60 minutes, giving a talk. And I'm like, holy cow, I'm hooked. I am going to do everything I can from a content perspective to create what I refer to today as exponential awareness. This is what I came upon. If I can leverage my time to get one message in front of a lot of people at one time, I'm going to become a much more effective prospector. And that's when my business took off, is when I was mixing content with my emails, with my speaking. I had people who were starting to come to me, and I saw my business take off at that point.

Love it. Where do you find the boldness? Where do you find the courage? Because earlier, just a few minutes ago, you were talking about being consumed by fear. Fear of failing on the pitcher's mound, fear of not being able to close a life insurance conversation. How did you turn the corner there? Because the guy that I'm talking to today doesn't have any problem with fear. You still experience fear, obviously, all of us do. But you've learned to harness the fear, to acknowledge the fear at times, I would imagine. But in the same way that you would say hello to someone you're walking past on the street, if you happen to make eye contact, as long as you're not in New York City. Because apparently you don't do that in New York City. Here in the south, when you happen to make eye contact with someone, you greet them in some way. Whether a wave or a nod of the head or something of that nature. All of you Yankees up there with your freaking antisocial bullshit, I don't know what that's all about. But anyways, I digress. I'm thinking of my buddy Hanley is like, no, we don't do that up here. No, you Southern people, you're making me.

Laugh, James, because we just moved back from Colorado to Wisconsin in May of last year.

Yeah.

And one of the first things that really shocked Amy and I was when we were out for a walk, we're like, wait, people are waving at us.

People are saying hello to us.

We didn't get that in Colorado. Like, you would walk past somebody in the neighborhood and their head would be down. I'm like, here, they're actually waving out of their cars. It was. It was a. For us, it was like, holy cow, we're back in the Midwest.

Midwest, Nice, baby. It's a thing.

On August 5, it all started three days later. My mind was blown. Brain share was sold out. We had placed 27 classes taught by agents. We have vendors piling in. I'm telling you, do not wait. It's gonna be sold out. There's only 400 tickets, and we have 40% of them left.

Yes.

It's been that explosive. And think about it, we're not even through the fall season yet. Once it hits October, November, we're sold out. Go to aiindytech.com right now, ainditech.com and get your tickets. Get registered. I'm telling you. Not only that, prices are going up soon.

I swear. The Midwest is basically the South. So, anyways, I digress there. How did you get out of that fear and anxiety loop? You don't know it yet because I haven't told you, but I'm still kind of going through a process that I'll explain after you tell your story there. How in the world did you get over that fear and anxiety loop?

Great question. I would tell you the key, the pivotal moment was the move. And I'll explain in a second. Up until 2014, I was so consumed with what people thought of me. I was so worried about how people would react if I said something or put myself out there. I will tell you, that comes from a childhood of being a chunky kid. I know it sounds weird, but I was a chunky kid. And you get made fun of a lot as a kid, right. When you're chunky. And mental health wasn't a thing back then like it is today. And I think There was a lot of fear as a kid of putting myself out there because if I received any kind of attention, it was probably negative. And so I think that stuck with me for a long time, James, where I just didn't want, I wanted to fit in, I didn't want to stand out. And I was worried about what other people thought of me all the time. Well, when we moved.

It was kind of a way for me to start over really, because now I'm, I'm somewhere nobody knows who the heck I am. Up until age 36, I lived in an area where people knew me since I was a kid. I'm now in a market, nobody knows me. I can create whatever I want. And for whatever reason, in that moment being a complete anonymity, I realized I got nothing to lose.

I'm. I've got a chance to recreate my brand here. And I made a commitment to myself that said, you know, if I'm going to do this, I gotta be okay with people not liking it. I gotta, I gotta not care what people think. And I think that move was really what allowed me to do that. And I'm not telling people, you gotta move to, to get over that fear. But for me, it was finding myself in a new market, which was scary, but it gave me that chance to basically build another brand. And that's where my attitude and everything else, and by the way, I'll mention at that time is when I, at 2014, 15, is when I really started diving into personal development too. I started following people like Darren Hardy, Tony Robbins and these people who teach mindset that that also helped play a role is really to start working on myself mentally, to put myself in a position to overcome all those fears.

Do you mind if I just keep going in this direction? I think we're absolutely on to something. One of the things that I have been dealing with in the last several months. I had a full on panic attack November 6th of last year. First time I've ever had one of those. Everybody who knows me is like, you had a panic attack. You're like the most confident, outgoing person I know was like, I don't know what to tell you. I had a panic attack. And here's why, here's how I got to that point. And I've been in therapy for a year and a half before the panic attack happened. So it was even more surprising. But one of the things that I have been processing through since then and since very publicly acknowledging on this podcast and in other content, talking about, hey, I'm Dealing with chronic anxiety. I'm dealing with some really negative self talk and just kind of being transparent about my journey there. The other end of the pendulum swing of not caring what other people think is there's a lot of shame, a lot of imposter syndrome that comes out when I'm a paid speaker. People spend thousands of dollars to have me come to their audience and talk about whatever. I published a book last summer. When those things happen in the same calendar year that I have a full on panic attack and find myself staring at the ceiling of my hotel room in New Orleans like 12 hours after I was on stage as a keynote speaker at a conference. The most humbling thing ever. But the hardest part of that was shame of what are people going to think? I can't talk about this because they're going to think I'm a fraud. Worse than that, I think I'm a fraud right now because this happened and I don't deserve to be on that stage. That hyper fixation on reputation and shame and whatnot. The other end of that pendulum is calloused harshness and going, I don't care what people think. And then you end up a jerk or an asshole or a bitch or whatever word someone wants to use to describe someone who really doesn't care what people think and does what they want and doesn't care about collateral damage or emotional trauma that they end up inflicting on people in their circle. How did you manage staying in the middle where I can tell that you're emotionally intelligent, I can tell that you're a high empathy kind of person. Here today, In April of 2024, as we record this, how do you stay in between those poles, those extremes that are both really toxic and really detrimental? On the one hand, being consumed by anxiety and fear, on the other hand, just being a self absorbed, detached jerk.

Yeah, great question.

On one end, I think, and I can't tell you when it happened, but at at some point in the last five or six years.

I validated myself. And what I mean by that is the moment I, I felt validated and it might have been when I started this business, James, because I kind of felt like I knew this was, this is what I was born to do. I no longer cared about, I have to be at this conference or I've got to be hanging out with this crowd or I've, oh my Lord, what is this person gonna think, right? I just, I'm me, I'm happy to do me. And if you don't like me, I'm sorry, we're probably not meant to do business. And honestly, you want to hear something funny, man? I'll share this. And maybe there's a little humor. The other little epiphany I had with that because again, I was somebody very, very fearful of what people thought of me. I can remember my first, our first big win with Complete Game Consulting was getting hired to do a workshop for a very large, well known insurance company in our industry. So I went to their headquarters and I did a workshop for their recruiting team. And I got nervous right away because you can't see me right now or see this, but if I turn, I have long hair. I wear my hair in a man bun.

No, we're recording video and this is going to be on our YouTube channel so they.

Absolutely. You can see my man bun. I was, I had. And I'm like, I was nervous because I'm like, what are they going to think? I'm going to a large corporate entity And I almost cut my hair. I know this sounds funny, but I decided not to. So I traveled to their headquarters and I said, I'm just gonna let my hair go down. I won't put it up. And so I start this key, I start this workshop. And about five minutes in, my hair is everywhere. And I finally said, guys.

Would you mind if I just put my hair up?

And every single one of them looked at me like, yeah, man, go ahead, do what you got to do.

Yeah.

And it was that little moment as, as simple, as mundane as that sounds. It was that little moment of like, huh, I guess I can be myself. Here I am at a large corporate office for a very large insurance company. They don't care. You know, I see you've got tattoos on your arm, right? They don't care.

They really don't.

And, and, and I think it was, it was where I, it was moments like that. It wasn't just one thing. It was moments that, like that, where I'm like, what am I so worried about?

I'm the one who's worried about what other people think. They could care less.

They're busy living their own life. They don't care at all.

And that's when the content came easier to me, James, is when I said, why am I so worried about what I say? Or when I put it out there, what time and how does it. They don't care. They're worried about themselves.

Yeah.

Or if I don't post something today, what's going to happen? Nothing. Because nobody cares. And so they care about the value that's delivered 100%.

And we'll just pivot back to something that resembles an insurance conversation for a second. You know, one of the things that we're, we're kind of reformulating the way that we communicate our mission, our values, our, our reason for existing in the marketplace. And I, I've come to understand that it's consolidated down to really two things. RiskWell has two jobs. I personally, as a leader of RiskWell, have two jobs. One, build trust. Two, solve problems. That's it. There are no other jobs.

Love that.

Insurance is a vehicle that we do those things in. Risk management is a vehicle that we do those things in. People care about building trust. And when I build trust, they care. When they go, oh, he told me something real. He helped me understand something. Maybe he disclosed something that may not be entirely, you know, favorable, but he told me the truth. Oh, I trust him a little more now than I did before. Oh, he told me a story that is not entirely flattering about himself. I trust him a little bit more now. He told me about a failure that he had in the marketplace, a mistake that was made and what he did to help, you know, mitigate the damage of that mistake. I trust him a little more now. Maybe it's answering a question. Oh, he gave me useful information or he anticipated my needs and told me something that I hadn't yet asked him about. A little bit of trust. A little bit of trust. And then obviously all the problem solving things we know, those are the reasons why we exist. Those are the things that we do. That's what people care about, the content. I don't think they care at all about the content. People. One of the things I say on my keynotes is your stakeholders are all selfish. They are all self interested. They all care about themselves, their family, their friends, their business. And that's fine. That's their job. It is their job to provide for themselves and their family and get the life that they want. Of course they're going to be selfish. Understand that and play into it. Feed them and they will give you what you want by, you know, buying your products or services or sending you a referral because they like what you did for them or you make them feel good about themselves. Am I on the right track here? I'm getting a lot of headlines, so I feel like we're tracking.

It's what you just said is, is the reason why 97% of marketing in the insurance industry is completely ineffective. Yeah, because your prospects are selfish so bad they only want to know one question in your marketing. What's in it for me? Yeah, and far too much insurance. Marketing is all about the agency. Nobody cares. Your prospects just want to know what's in it for them. And if you want your marketing to be more effective, stop telling your story and start telling theirs. And I think something you said, James, that I want to go back to is the building trust and solving problems. Right. Our prospects are more skeptical to sales pitches. They sniff out sales pitches better than they ever have. They. It is harder to build somebody's trust today than it's ever been. Right?

Yeah.

So the one who's willing to open up and literally be completely transparent is going to win. One of the things we really focus on right now with our marketing and the work we do with clients is give your prospects quick wins. Give them something they literally can take today and go do and have success. They'll be like, oh, it's really cool. Thank you. But what it requires you to do with content is you got to give away the farm. I believe if you give away the farm, you'll reap the harvest. What does that mean? You got to share the good stuff. The days of. I'm not going to share anything with you until you give me the agent of record letter. They're over. Your prospects are going to move on to somebody who's willing to share.

You got to give them a reason to sign the AOR.

100%.

I operate on an. On an AOR Bor basis. We operate on representation. But you don't start with that. It's like, hi, I'm James. Would you like to marry me?

Like, I know we just met, but I'm going to ask you for a big commitment. Why don't you want to marry me? I was like, that's a whole bo. If you leave with the bor, it's. Man, it's just rude. It's just presumptuous. And then people get bent. It's like, why would they sign up? Because they literally have no idea who you are. You haven't built trust. You haven't solved any problems. Why on earth would they sign a bor with you? You got to do something to earn the bor first, man. Come on.

That's why I see too many advisors today who are really skilled. They probably have better strategies in their competition, yet they're coming in second place. They don't have trust or credibility.

Well, like Ricky Bobby said, if you're not first, you're last. Because last time I checked, the only the first place Winner gets a trophy.

Yeah.

You know what? Second place. That trophy's in the ladies room down the hall. Thank you, Top Gun. Okay, where are we going to go with this, man? I feel like we're at a little pivot here, so I'm just going to put my little whoosh button in. What are you finding interesting in the marketplace right now? When you are talking to people in the industry day in and day out, what's something that has your curiosity piqued or something that a current trend or something that's happening in the industry that makes you go.

I come from the benefits industry. Right. The majority of my career is spent over there. I will say a trend that I see, and it's very similar in the property casualty space is there's a lot of talk around innovation. You know, on the benefit side, you have cost containment. Everybody's talking about the health care system being the problem and we need to fix health care. And I agree with all of it. But what I'm seeing is the vast majority of these people aren't winning business because they're talking about the wrong problems and they're making it way too hard for prospects to hire them. It's that simple. If you just talk about the problems your prospects actually have. No CEO in America, James, goes to work saying, I need to fix healthcare today, Day nobody, no CEO comes to work saying, we need to fix our. Our, our. Our business turns. They don't. You gotta. You gotta actually solve their real problems in business and then you gotta make it easy for them to hire you.

Y.

Make it easier for them to say, say, say yes. How do we take the next step? How do you do that? Be vulnerable, be open, be transparent and share a lot of good information.

Yep. Love it. And sharing that good information. How do we start with that? What is the step one? When someone is listening to this podcast that goes, yeah, I get it. I understand that I need to do it. I just don't know how. Like, how do I get started? When I hit record, what in the world do I talk about? What's your advice to them?

Great question. So when we work with producers and agencies, we walk them through an exercise we call the five step five star prospect profile. So I don't know if you've read the book Building a Story Brand, James, but I'm a story brand certified guide. So we use a lot of the templates and terminology from story brand, but really what we're doing is identifying your ideal prospect. So if somebody's going to start a content journey here's what I want them to ask themselves. Who's my favorite client today and why? Why are they my favorite client? What are their psychographics? How do these people think? What do they stand for? What do they believe? Why do they. Why are they your favorite? What problem do you solve better than anybody else in the market? I know you solve a bunch of problems, but there's one. You got to become known for just one thing in your content if you want it to grow. And then what's your process to fix it? How do you fix the problem? And then what will life look like for your prospects when they hire you and become your clients? You build out that story framework. Your job is to take that to the content stage and now speak to your ideal prospect. That's your only job. And the number one thing you need to do is continuously talk about the one thing you want to become known for. What is that problem? You solve every better than anybody else so that when they think of that problem, they think of you. And if you can take that approach to content, let's use LinkedIn content, for example. If you can take that approach, create videos, Write newsletters, other LinkedIn posts, you will build thought leadership over time around that subject. So when people have that problem, you're the first one they think of.

Love it. Now, that is such a simple framework. And man, I would, I would just really suggest anybody who is able to, if you're not driving your vehicle right now, hit the back button a couple of times and hear that block again from Andy. Because if you're looking for some ideas, some structure, some framework around how do I record content, what do I start with? How do I figure this thing out? Then I would say that's a great place to start. And I don't have it right here on my desk, but all you need, really, literally all you need. I know it's ironic that a guy who just spent 40 grand on content Studio is talking about all you need is a phone and a little tripod. This smartphone, any, really, any modern smartphone is going to have adequate capabilities to record something. You get a little tripod from Amazon, one of those little extendable ones, and get yourself a little microphone. A couple hundred bucks is a, you know, there's a couple of different options from Rode Wireless. The one that I got, the Rode Wireless Pro, is phenomenal. Best $300 I ever spent on audio. It works for mirrorless cameras, the same as it works for a phone. You've got good video on here, you've got good audio from, I mean, 30 bucks for a lapel mic on Amazon and then do what? And you just talked about, congratulations, you've got the first five videos that are going to be on the new YouTube channel or LinkedIn or wherever you choose to put them, and you're off to the races at that point. Then all you do is plug in some Marcus Sheridan's. They ask, you answer. You've got a couple of years worth of content. Bada bing, bada boom, get out of here.

Those are the two books I highlight more, James, than anything else. Building a Story Brand. And you ask the answer. Just answer your prospects questions. What questions are they asking you? What objections are they. Are they throwing at you? I just had a workshop this morning with a group of advisors, and one of them was an advisor with a very large firm, one of the largest in our industry. He said, you know, one of the challenges I have is I'll go meet with these groups and they know who I work for, and they'll be like, aren't you too big to service somebody like us? I'm like, you need to create a piece of content around that. You. Because if you, if, if one prospect is asking you that question, you know, there's dozens of others thinking the same thing. Why not create a video that said, hey, I got this question from a prospect the other day and I wanted to provide an answer. And now you give the answer. You're helping prospects overcome an objection before you ever meet with them. There's not a better way to use content.

Yeah, well, and then titling the video, the question is risk? Well, too big for me. I was like, ooh. All right, Elephant in the room. Done. Check. Next.

100%.

I promised you 40 minutes of runtime, and we're right about there. This is your opportunity to promo literally whatever you want, shamelessly pitch yourself in any way that you choose. We're about to wrap the episode and you've got some really good stuff, man. I imagine you're going to get some people that are going to subscribe to your social channels.

Well.

And then just engage with you at some point.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity, James. I'd say, number one, come connect with me on LinkedIn. Andy Neary, complete Game Consulting. Come check us out@completegameconsulting.com and if you have an agency or producer who knows you need to be build more credibility with your prospects. You need to have a better online presence. The number one question we help people solve, James, is when somebody Googles you, which they will what are they going to find? Because your online presence dictates your credibility with your prospects. So if you're an agency or a producer who knows, you need a better online presence to build that credibility. That's what we do.

Simple enough. We're going to put all of your links in the show notes. The stuff that you filled out in the guest information form. We're going to put every bit of that in the show notes, guys and girls. Check him out. Andy has put on a great episode here, man. I love this conversation. This. This was so much fun. Thank you for sharing some of your valuable time with us. And that's it. Check out completegameconsulting.com and connect with Andy on LinkedIn. That's all for today, boys and girls. And wow, what a time. I absolutely love this. Fantastic. Make it a great day and we'll talk to you again real soon. Y' all take care.

Thanks, James.

Thanks as always for listening to the Agency Freedom Podcast. Please subscribe to the show and leave us a review if you like what you hear. Those subs and reviews are actually super important for our reach to new listeners. Get your copy of my book Leaving Captivity on Amazon or Audible for the audiobook version. We'd love to hear from you, so please send your thoughts, questions, ideas and general feedback to us@podcastamesjenkins.com Agency Freedom is produced and distributed by Podsky Squad FM. This is the Agency Freedom Podcast. Make it a great day, boys and girls. Until next time, let's go.