Crafting Your Brand's Message to Attract Your Ideal Client - with Andy Neary

Welcome to the Ecommerce Marketing Podcast, the highly rated digital marketing podcast that provides weekly digital marketing tips and strategies from some of the world's top digital marketers and E commerce entrepreneurs that will help you take your digital marketing to the next level. Sit back and enjoy this power packed episode hosted by Arlan Robinson, who is an E commerce entrepreneur and digital marketing expert with over 20 years of experience. Hey, ecommerce marketing podcast listener, are you looking to increase traffic and sales to your website? You can do this by launching your own affiliate program. Just visit getosi.com and sign up for a free trial today. That's getosi.com now get ready to hear from your Ecommerce marketing expert of the week as they drill down to give you details on marketing strategies that can help grow your business.

Welcome back to the E Commerce Marketing Podcast everyone. My name is Arlan and I am your host and and today we have a very special guest, Andy Neary, who is a former professional baseball player and a two time Ironman finisher, business coach and founder of Complete Game Consulting. Combining the skills and talents he used to compete in professional baseball and Ironman competitions, Andy's on a mission to help business and insurance professionals succeed in their careers and in life. He helps insurance professionals target the right audiences at the right time and his programs help people cultivate the off field habits, mindsets and rituals that lead to all star performances. Welcome to the podcast, Andy.

Arlen, I'm happy to be here man. I'm excited. Thank you for having me.

I'm excited, excited to talk to you. You know, we're going to be talking about a subject that I think is very important to really all businesses, not even not just e commerce businesses and that is telling your prospects story, not telling your story, not telling, you know, what you can do for the company, but you know, trying to tell your prospects stories so that you can align with them, you can engage with them and you have what you call a secret formula to building a brand marketing message that naturally attracts the target client, you know, the right target client. And so I'm definitely interested to see where that secret formula is for sure. So we're going to dive deep into that. But before we do get into all of that, why don't you tell us a little bit more about your background and specifically how you got into what you're doing today.

Yeah, Arlen, when you said two time Ironman, I cringe because I actually did three Ironmans and I didn't finish the last one because of injury. I had to bow out halfway through the race. But when I look back at my career, former professional baseball player, it's interesting. A lot of people hear that, and they go, man, that must have been great. And I wasn't a prototypical. I wasn't the prototypical size for a pitcher. I was 5 foot 9, 170 pounds. So a lot of people look at the chance that I got to play pro baseball as, wow, you overcame a lot of odds. You overcame a lot of hurdles, which is true. But I also know I didn't reach my full potential because when I got to pro baseball, all my limiting beliefs I had as a kid came back. The fear of comparison, the fear of judgment, the fear of failure, it came back to haunt me. And when I looked at what kept me from reaching my full potential in baseball, it was all between the ears. And I share that because that's how the first 10 years of my insurance career went. So. So I got into the insurance business like most people, not by design. I didn't intend to. Somebody suggested I should give it a shot. But my first 10 years were very mediocre because all of those limiting beliefs. And that a pivotal moment came for me when we moved from Wisconsin to Colorado in 2014. I found myself in a new market selling insurance to people who have no clue who I am. Am.

Okay.

So I said, all right, this is a chance to rewrite your story. This is a chance to rewrite your future. So I decided, I'm going to build a brand. I'm going to become a new version of me. I'm going to build a brand that's very recognizable, that creates a ton of awareness in this industry because I got to get a lot of people to know me fast. And that's where this whole journey of where I am today Arlan started, because I created a new marketing strategy, one that a lot of people in the insurance industry weren't using. What's a personal brand? Nobody in the industry knew what that was. And I was able to grow a book of business. And fast forward six, seven years later, I had some peers reach out and say, hey, I need you to help me do what you did. And lo and behold, a business came out of it. Complete Game consulting. And in 2021, I decided to sell. I no longer was selling insurance. I went all in on building this coaching and training company I have today, which we teach insurance professionals how to book appointments with the right prospects. And the best way to do that is to tell their story. And so we. We really just help insurance companies improve Their marketing improve who they're talking to, what they're saying and where they're saying it to get the right attention. And, and the principles we teach, which I'm sure we'll talk about, actually could apply to anybody selling any kind of product. Okay.

Yeah, that. That's what I thought at the, you know, top of the episode. That's kind of what I was saying. It's, it's. Any business needs to really kind of sell that way and, and really speak to their. Their customer. And, you know, you're trying to really kind of identify with their needs, not just, you know, spitting out all of your facts, your features, your benefits, you know, you want to be in alignment with the problems and the needs of the end customer. And that's. That's the bottom line. Well, you know, that's a great story, Manny. Thank you for sharing that. It seems like you've definitely transitioned from quite a few different areas. You know, starting from the professional baseball player to ironman finisher to business coach, marketing expert. All that's really fascinating. And then, you know, going to what you're doing today. So could you share how your previous experiences with sports has influenced your building of your brand, your personal brand?

Yeah. The number one thing I think I've taken from sports, despite all those limiting beliefs I had, Arlen, the reason I was given the opportunity to play professional baseball was because of all the work I put in off the field when no one was watching. And I think that's what separates athletes from the pack is what are you doing when no one else is watching. Right. And it was the same thing when I realized I need to put that same kind of work into building my brand. Heck, selling insurance, putting all the work in when no one is watching is when my career started to take off. And if there's one lesson that I have taken from playing baseball at that level and how I've applied it to my business career, it would be that consistency. There's a screen, there's a set of panels right behind my head here in my coaching from where I coach. And it's got three words, consistent, persistent, and patient. And I think that's what it takes to grow any business today, is you got to be consistent. You gotta do this. You gotta show up every week, week in, and we out, week out. You gotta be persistent. You gotta keep doing it after everybody else quits, but you gotta be patient. You know, this. Building a business is a long game, and you got to enjoy the journey. And when I go back to my pro baseball career. If I'm willing to admit this, I wasn't enjoying the journey at that time. I was looking at baseball like a job. And hindsight's 20 20. There's a lot of things I would do differently back then if I knew what I knew now. But that's really it is building a business. And where I've been able to be successful with it is because of these three things. Consistency, persistency, and patience.

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Yeah, great question. So I read a book in 2016 or 17, I can't remember exactly that changed my career. Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller.

Oh.

And it's one of the best marketing books I've ever read about how to tell the prospect story, right. How to use storytelling to sell your products. And today I'm actually a story brand certified guide because I believe in what they teach, that I wanted to be able to use what they teach as well. But it was there where I heard the, I saw the formula of how to tell a story. Every story ever written has a character who has a goal but has a problem keeping them from the goal, which is why they need a guide who has a plan to help them succeed and avoid failure. And when I read that, I'm like, that's too simple. There's no way that that's all you've got to do in storytelling to get somebody's attention. But lo and behold, I sat down and I built the framework based on my prospect at the time. And I was like, wow, people are responding. And I think that's the piece we often miss in marketing. Arlen is the best thing to do sometimes is to keep it simple.

Yeah.

And what you just said earlier is where most people go wrong with that story framework is right away at the beginning, who's the character? Who's the hero? A lot of businesses think they're the hero. I hear it all the time from the agencies we work with. Well, who's the hero? Well, aren't we? No, they don't care what year you were founded. They don't care how many amazing products you have and all these partnerships you have. They just want to know what's in it for me. And telling their story is the best way of doing that.

Yeah, yeah, it sure is. And I've seen that time and time again, you know, especially these days. I think we're kind of in a stage where we are as a society where people are looking to, you know, there's so much information out there.

So.

So nine times out of ten, when someone approaches your brand, they already know your whole deal. They know your story. They know where you started. You know, these days with Google and AI now, I mean, it just takes a couple seconds to get a full breakdown of a history of a company. And so by the time, you know, if they're really going to be a true customer and they're doing their own research, they, they already kind of know your deal. So the bottom line is, yeah, you're, you know, being able to connect with them and, you know, identifying to what, what you can do for them. Now, I know part of your secret formula is also crafting, you know, marketing messages that are naturally going to attract the target client. You Know without giving away, of course, all your secrets. Could you outline the foundational principles of this formula?

And. And I'm happy they share everything. And. And you don't need to call them secret, because I'll tell you, everything we do today I've learned from mentors of mine.

Gotcha.

And we use an exercise called the five Star Prospect Profile. A lot of sports terms in our exercises, but it's called the five Star Prospect Profile, and it's how to identify your ideal client. And there's five questions you've got to answer clearly. First one is, who is your favorite client today? I think every business should look at its clientele and go, who is that? One we wish we could replicate over and over and over again. Might be a little harder if you're in the E commerce where you have thousands of clients. But who. What is that type of client you wish you could replicate? And then the second question is, why are they your favorite? Why does this Persona or this business.

Fit the characteristics of the ideal client? And the only answer you can't give is, because we make the most money on them. There's a reason they're your favorite. So we dig into two different things when it comes to why demographics and psychographics. And demographics, again, to use a sports analogy, is like an athlete's height, weight, and speed. Psychographics is, how is that athlete going to perform in the fourth quarter with the game online, how do they think up here? And when you can dissect your ideal client between the ears, like, who are these people? What do they believe? What do they stand for? Not just how old are they, how much money do they make? That's where you find the goal. Because if you start incorporating the psychographics of the ideal client into your marketing, that's where you get inside the buyer's head. That's where you get them to go. Man, I feel like they're talking directly at me. The third question is, what problem do you solve better than anybody else? So now that you know who your ideal target is demographically and psychographically, what is the problem you feel you're more credible to solve than anybody else?

What's your process to fix it? So question four is, what is your process to solve the problem? And then question five is, what result does your process create? And when we walk our clients through that exercise, they get really clear on the type of prospect they're trying to attract, because you can't be all things to all people.

Yeah, yeah, Very, very true. What you were saying is it's kind of resonating with just what I see with a lot of companies. And like you said, the one thing you can't say is, okay, the company that's bringing us the most money. I mean, naturally, of course, the company is going to want to say, yeah, you know, they've been with us the longest time, they bring us the most money. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be your ideal client because, you know, there's a lot of other factors there. What I was wondering, though, is looking at, let's say, all of your client base, it kind of seems like you could find elements from multiple computers, customers that kind of make up your ideal. It may be, you know, you may not necessarily find all of those aspects in the same customer. I'm wondering, I mean, have you seen that where they're kind of spread out between multiple.

Absolutely. When we, when we do this exercise with clients, what I actually have them do is when we start listing out the demographics, I have them make two columns. One is the demographics of that specific client. But then over on the right, we have the demographics of the ideal client. Because the ideal may not be exactly like the specific client they wrote down, but the psychographics will typically never change. Because whether, no matter what the demographics are, if your buyer has a certain belief, certain stance, certain way they go about their business, that's the person you're trying to look for, no matter what the demographics say.

Yes.

Right. And so we see it in the insurance industry. A lot of producers and agencies focus on the demographics. They completely ignore the psychographics, and that's, that's where the gold is. That's where you really lock in your ideal prospect.

Okay, gotcha. Yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense. Now I'm always about, you know, getting lessons, lessons learned from, you know, companies that are out there in the field implementing these things. Because I think that's the best way to, to really learn and see if a marketing strategy really is going to stand the test of time. You know, if it's been used, what were some failures, what were some successes with it? So I wanted to see if you could share a case study or example where a brand successfully implemented, you know, the strategy of telling their prospect story and then what impact did it have on their market?

I'll give you a really good example. And I know it will come from the insurance world, but it makes, it'll make a lot of sense for your listeners. So I come from an industry where people have. Agencies offer a lot of different products. There's a lot of different solutions they can throw at a potential client. And where, where they make a mistake is they want to talk about it. All right, we call it, I call it the old capability slide. The slide that says this is everything we do and everything we can help you with.

Right.

The agencies I see have exponential growth are the ones that say, you're right, we can do everything, but we're the best at this. And then they focus their entire marketing strategy around that one thing they do better than anybody else. So when we help an agency build a brand, and this applies to any business, I ask them two questions. What makes you unique and what do you do better than anybody else? Because your brand's at the intersection of those two answers, then it's about building your marketing strategy around that one thing. So we have an agency that is, there's a, there's a product in our industry they call captives. You guys, listeners don't need to know what that means, but everything they do is built around captive insurance. That's all they talk about. Well, guess what's happened. They have become the go to resource for captive insurance. When people think of that product, they think of that company. So instead of wanting to talk about all these different things in there in the industry they could help with, they get focused and they saw, they have seen 20 plus percent growth every year for the past three or four years because they got very narrow on what they do best.

Yeah, yeah, it makes sense because it's doing it that way is really a lot easier to not only, you know, manage the business because you're focused, but also to be able to narrow down on that ideal client because, you know, okay, this is what we specialize in. We're experts at this, so we can kind of identify, you know, the right people that are going to be in alignment with that specific aspect.

I do want to add this though, Arlen, if I can, because you probably have listeners in the e commerce space that offer different products and they want to sell them. All right.

Yeah.

My advice to them would be would I just walk through that five star prospect profile? I would just do a five star prospect profile on every different product you have.

I see.

Because every different product might have a different buyer and just get clear on who the ideal product buyer is for that specific product and then repeat the exercise for your, your different products.

Yeah, yeah, I like that.

Yeah.

Because, you know, especially if you're selling different products, it's definitely not going to be, you know, one size fits all with Your marketing campaigns, your messaging, you're going to need to tailor it for the different products. There's going to be different customers that are going to be in alignment when and have an interest in the different ones. So that, that, that makes total sense. Now, as you've been going through this journey not only in your business, but with the lives of the businesses that you're working with that you're coaching, what have you seen as some common pitfalls that brands usually fall into when they adopt prospect centered, you know, storytelling approach and you know, how can they avoid these pitfalls?

Couple things in marketing that I, we try to help our clients avoid is one, we talked about make sure you're making the prospect the hero, not you. That that's where we start. Number two, every story you tell inside the world of your marketing has to focus on one goal and one problem at a time. So if you're putting out marketing that tries to talk about several goals and several problems in the same piece of content or marketing, you're going to confuse people. And Don Miller talks about it in the book Building a Story Brand. If you confuse, you lose. If you're confusing your buyers, you're not going to win business. And so be very focused. So whatever you put out there, keep it the one problem, one goal, don't get caught on wanting to talk about everything in every single piece of marketing. And then the third thing I would tell people, and this is probably more social media marketing driven because our advisors and agencies we work with get so caught up in this. If you're going to use social media to grow your business, whether that be Instagram, Facebook or we use LinkedIn a lot in our business, just focus on talking to your prospects. Don't get caught up in the algorithm, don't get caught up in the cut likes in the comments. Don't get caught up on the dopamine. Your job is just to talk to your prospects and unfortunately that can come with less likes and comments. But if you're just there to do business and educate your prospects, social media will help you grow your business.

Okay, yeah, I can definitely see, see that. And it's, it is difficult because with all these platforms, like you said, it's hard not to get caught up in the likes, the shares, the followers that you have. And it's tough, you know, and there's the dopamine rush when you see, you know, you're getting these likes on this post and these messages are resonating.

Arlen, I don't know. Do you remember when instagram changed their algorithm a little bit, where all of a sudden, people dancing and the voiceovers on reels became really popular.

Yep. I remember.

Yeah, I remember watching people literally do that stuff to grow their business. And I remember telling my girlfriend, I said, if I have to arrive at the day that I have to do some dance or some stupid voiceover to grow my business, I'm done. Yeah, but that was Instagram. That's Pete. That's how Instagram gets you to chase the algorithm.

Yeah, exactly.

Just talk to your prospects.

That's. That's the bottom, bottom line. It's just a lot of businesses, you get caught up in that because, you know, they become trendy, Those types of things become trendy. You see other businesses doing that. You're seeing the likes, you're seeing the shares. You're like, okay, what am I missing? I need to do this.

A tagline we use for social media and the training we provide is we help our clients chase dollars, not dopamine.

Yeah, that's. That's really good. Especially in this whole world of social media. For sure. Well, Andy, as we get ready to wrap things up, you know, for businesses that are looking to, you know, pivot their current marketing strategies to focus more on, you know, their prospect stories, what would you say are the first practical steps that you'd recommend that they should take in order to make this shift?

Great question. I think a good effective marketing strategy answers three questions clearly, who are you talking to? What are you saying? And where are you saying it? So the first thing you got to start with is who are you talking to? Our five star prospect profiles are exercise we use to help you get clear on who you are talking to. Step two is the what are you saying? And that's where I reference the story brand framework. Use the framework to tell your prospect story, and then the where is focus on exponential awareness. Where can we put our message in front of a lot of people at one time? Is it social media? Is it podcasting? Is it YouTube? Is it webinars? Is it public speaking? But focus on getting your message in front of a lot of people at one time to get that message out far, fast and wide. If you do those three things well, your marketing is going to work for you.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. Those are definitely some great pieces of advice for sure and a great start for people that are, you know, haven't done this, that need to make a shift. Because I. I do see a lot of businesses that are doing some traditional things and, you know, it's. They're doing all the same things, they're making all the same mistakes, you know, touting all of their features, their benefits, their features, and not really trying to uncover, you know, their success of their customers. Yep. Well, Andy, this has been an awesome conversation. Really appreciate having you on today. I know this is going to resonate well with our listeners and our viewers. But lastly, before we do let you go, I always like to close things out with a closing fun fact about yourself, if you don't mind sharing something that you think we'd be interested to know.

Oh, man. Interesting to know.

I don't know how fun this would be for people, but.

I am a binge watcher of Modern Family in the Office.

Okay. Okay.

So if there. You got any listeners right there that love watching the Office or the reruns of. Of Modern Family, I'm your guy. Okay.

Gotcha. Well, you're, you're kind of at the right time because nowadays it's, it's pretty all. With all of these different streaming services, it's, it's pretty easy to do that.

And, and I will tell you this. I also eat my eggs with ketchup. So I don't know if that grosses anybody else out, but I, I'll share this real quick, Arlen. I had a leg infection, okay. Three years, almost three years ago now. It hospitalized me for six days. I almost lost my leg and we still don't know why I got it. But whatever happened coming out of it, whatever it was with the antibiotics, I got, I don't know, I had a, I left the hospital with an addiction to ketchup.

Okay.

It was the strangest thing. So I put it on everything these days.

Interesting. Interesting. I've never heard that before. Well, thank you for sharing that. You know, the addiction to ketchup, a Modern Family and the Office. I've, I've seen a few episodes of the Office and Modern Family. I never really got into it when.

They were out, but neither did I. It's all reruns. I never watched it when it was actually live.

Okay.

Yeah.

If I'm flipping around and I'm struggling to find something, maybe I'll, I'll pop on one of those seasons and see what I think. Well, great, Mandy, thank you for giving, for sharing that. Lastly, before we do let you go, if you don't mind sharing the best way for our listeners and viewers to, to reach you if they want to pick your brain anymore about this topic. Topic or.

Yeah, there's a couple ways. I am on LinkedIn and Instagram. So feel free to reach out to me. You can request a call right from my LinkedIn profile. So if anybody here's on LinkedIn I have a button you can just request a call to learn more. I also have a tutorial if anybody wants to get it. Arlen, it's@completegameplaybook.com okay if anybody wants to download that. It's a free course that I teach just going over our four pillars of of our Complete Game Marketing playbook. So if somebody wanted to go grab that, they could just go to Complete Game Marketing, Complete Gameplaybook, excuse me dot com.

Okay, awesome. Well we'll be sure to have that link to your site in our show notes so people can get to that and definitely encourage people to check that out and download that. You know that, that that guide for them and that's great. Thank you for offering that. We appreciate that and once again it's been awesome talking to you Andy. We really appreciate you coming on the E Commerce Marketing podcast.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

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