Andy Neary identifies four traits that separate top insurance advisors from the rest: competitiveness, lifelong learning, drive to improve, and coachability. He uses trigger questions on a single Zoom call to spot misfits who make excuses or want guarantees. The difference comes down to mindset, not demographics.
Chapters
There's one thing to coach, but when you're. What do you see as the common denominator for folks when you're identifying good talent? Yeah, I mean, this is a timely question. Guffey and I actually talked about it on my podcast. We just had an advisor, Jason Wynn, broker of the year in the industry benefits. And it made me sit down and just lay out our top clients. And I just started describing the psychographics. Who are these people between the ears? And it came off the heels. I'll share this because this is really part of the story. We have a guy like Chris who won broker of the year, and then we have over here, some people we probably shouldn't do business with, and we're freaking out because their credit card got declined.
I'm like, what's the issue here? Everybody on this end, competitive, loves to win. Students of the game in all areas of life, not just business, but how to become a better husband, a wife, my health, everything.
Lifelong learners. They're constantly trying to get better. When people tell them, hey, take the foot off the gas, they're like, no, no, I know I'm capable of more. The guy I just mentioned, we had a producer reach out recently who has a $7 million book. He could absolutely take his foot off the gas. He's like, but I want to get it 20. That's what I'm looking for. People who have that. What can I do to constantly get better on this end? When I look at people we should not have done business or with people, I will look at them in the face on my zoom chats and go, do not hire us. If I hear excuses, if I'm hearing, what kind of guarantees do you give me? And I can sense they're hoping somebody else invests for them, not them, I know they're not going to be a good fit. So right there, you want to break down of who's coachable. That. That's a pretty fine line between who's coachable and who's just looking for a quick win. And what. How often. How long does it take for you to figure that out? One zoom chat. Honestly, I can tell. And I ask. I ask some pretty. What I call the. The trigger questions where I can tell based on how they answer the question. I'm like, yeah, it's. I don't think this is going to be a fit for you. In fact, after I did that exercise that week, I had three prospects I talked to that I told them, do not invest in this, because I knew I could tell the way they were responding and just their mentality, they wouldn't, they wouldn't be a good fit for us. And from a marketing perspective, you saying no, you're marketing, you're trying to get everyone's attention. You're trying to get in front of the right people. You saying no? Do you feel like that gave you more clarity on who your ideal, it was freeing. And you and I have talked about this, man. I mean, we come from an industry that thinks all prospects are good prospects, right? Yeah. The, the second you get clear on who your avatar is in the marketing world, they call it an avatar, right? And we've talked about this. It can't be just demographics. Just because you have a niche in real estate and construction does not mean everybody in that industry or those industries is a good fit. It's who are the people between the ears? How do they make decisions.
