Get These 3 Things Right And You'll Create An Unstoppable Prospecting Machine

And here's what we're diving in today, folks. We are going to talk about three things, if you get them right, build a prospecting machine. And I share this because.

I've seen it happen to our business. Let me share my screen.

I've seen it happen to our business and I see it happen to our clients business when they do these three things right. So I want to talk about these three things today. So if you've noticed, first and foremost, we have moved away from our weekly webinars and we're going to go to bi weekly for now, at least for the fourth quarter because I know you guys are insane right now. You're in banana world and trying to get stuff done right now is pretty chaotic. So instead of putting one of these out every single week, we're going to do every two weeks between now and the end of the year. So today we're going to talk about three things. If you get right, you will create an unstoppable prospecting machine. Now, if you were on the webinar two weeks ago, you remember me talking about this, these are three things I want everybody to think about when it comes to your prospecting, whether it's the rest of this year or for 2023. Now, before I get to these three things, I want to talk about what I see in the industry right now. It's the way I was taught 20 years ago, it's the way you were probably taught. And it's a big problem we have right now when it comes to prospecting, when it comes to what advisors are leveraging to prospect advisor, meaning you could be an advisor working with direct employers or it could be Andrew McNeurland. I see you on there. You're working through advisors. It's the same challenge.

When you got in the industry.

You were taught to go far and wide. What do I mean by that?

You were taught that the best way to prospect is to go get the biggest list you possibly can get.

Even though none of these people know who you are and you were taught to take this list.

And punch them in the face every day.

We have all been taught what's called direct marketing in the insurance world, which is, I'm going to take this list, I'm going to pick up the phone, I'm going to send emails and I am just going to constantly barrage you with my message in hopes that you're going to buy. So what we do is we send a bunch of emails. Often the emails are spam because we're asking for them to take we're asking for one hour of their time. We're asking them to do something. We really haven't earned the right yet. We haven't earned their trust yet. But we're asking them to do something or we're picking up the phone. And I'll tell you, more often than not these days, that quote is what we're. What's going on inside their head. How do you not remember me?

And the issue we have right now is the more that these tactics don't work, we're getting a little more desperate every single time, to the point that this is literally what we're practically saying we when we reach out.

If there's one thing that has changed post pandemic.

Is that it's harder to get people's attention than it's ever been. You know, if you call somebody on a cell phone, right? We all use this these days for phone. Very few people have an office phone anymore, right? And if I get a call from a number I don't recognize.

What are the odds I'm going to pick this up? Very slim, right? You guys are probably all the same way. If you see a number you do not recognize, there's a very low chance you're going to actually take it. You're going to let it go to voicemail and then determine whether or not you should return it. Apple and Samsung now actually tell you it might be spam, right? It might be a junk call. Same thing with email. At the end of the day, you get to your email and there's 100 emails and you're just flying through them as fast as you can, right? So it's hard to stand out and grab attention these days. Now, here's what's really interesting when it comes to how to prospect these days. Things haven't changed in decades. I gave a talk last week in Salt Lake City, and the room was filled with people anywhere from 70 years old to 25. And in the talk, I stopped and I said, guys, let me prove a point to you where prospecting has stalled in our industry. And I looked at a gentleman who appeared to be in his 60s, and I asked him, how long have you been in the industry? And he said, 40 years. I said, okay, when you got in the industry, how were you taught to prospect? And he said, here's a phone book, here's a list. Go make a bunch of calls. Said, exactly. Then I looked at a woman in the audience who looked much younger, and I asked her, how long were you in the. Have you been in the Industry. She said, less than five years. I said, how were you taught to prospect when you got in? It was the same answer as the guy who got in 40 years ago.

We have not changed how we're teaching producers to prospect these days. Although since then, what has happened? We've had the invention of email, we've had invention of the Internet. We've had Apple come out with the first ever smartphone. We've had this thing called social media developed. Yet the way we've been taught to prospect is still the same way we were taught in 1985.

That's what has to change. And that's what I want to talk about today, is if you want to change your prospecting.

This is what you have to focus on right now.

The first thing I want you to think about, this is number one of three. The first thing I want you to think about is clarity. What does clarity mean? Clarity means can you clearly. Cole Kramer, I see you. You're in my academy. You should be able to answer this one. Can you clearly tell me who your ideal prospect is?

Absolute clarity on who the perfect fit for you is. Whether it's you, your agency, your company. You cannot be all things to all people. I know you sell health insurance, which means everybody needs help, but there's not.

You're not a good fit for everybody. You know that. So you have to get clarity on who your ideal prospect is. How do you do that? Ask yourself some simple questions. Who's my favorite client today?

Why are they my favorite client? If you've been on past webinars, you've heard me talk about demographics versus psychographics, right? Demographics are their size, their industry, their location. How many employees do they have? Psychographics is. What do they stand for? What do they believe? How do they think? Because if I had you look at your favorite client right now, the reason they're your favorite is for all the psychographic reasons, not the demographics.

So why not go build a book of business with people like that? The people who let you do your best work.

So number one is you've got to be very clear about who your ideal prospect is for your agency, for your company.

Even people who are on this call right now that represent a vendor, script sourcing, Benazon, whatever. Not every agency is a good fit. Not every broker is a good fit. Figure out who your ideal fit is. Because I'm going to say this until I'm blue in the face, gang. If you look at how many wins it's going to take for you next year to completely Change your business. It's less than you think, which means you don't actually have to talk to as many people as you think. You just need to go find the people who are aligned with you. That's the clarity.

Go narrow and go deep. Do not go far and wide.

The second thing is you have to have a way to capture leads.

This goes back to the example I gave about how we were all taught in this industry, go far and wide, get a big list, and then just hammer them with phone calls and emails, right? Not one of those people gave us their email or call them, but we just did it anyways.

Imagine if you actually have a way to capture leads where they're giving you a permission, giving you their permission to email them, to send them a message on LinkedIn.

So when you think about capturing leads, there's two types of leads I think about. There is a social media lead. Think of it as a LinkedIn connection. That is a lead capture. Now, you're not going to turn around right away and try to sell them on an appointment. That's not a way to capture them. But on social media, on a platform like LinkedIn, when somebody, a prospect, accepts your connection, that's a lead. So what do you do with it? Well, why don't you create some good content and let your content do the speaking so that when you do reach out, they know you and they're like, yeah, I'll meet for 15 minutes.

On the email side, that's the more obvious answer. Capturing a lead is capturing an email address. Now, it's one way to capture an email address by, oh, I see their email address and their LinkedIn profile. So I'm just gonna grab it and start emailing them. They didn't give you any permission there, but what if you could actually create some form of lead generator where they're giving you permission?

If you guys can mute yourself, I'd appreciate. For now. Thank you. What if you could capture a lead where they give you permission? So here's an example. When you host webinars, just like I am right now, every single one of you had to register, right? Well, you had to put your email in to register. That's a lead, that's a capture. And you gave me your email address voluntarily.

Another way to capture leads through a lead generator is what if you created a educational video or you created a PDF with information that would be very valuable to me, the buyer.

And in exchange for the value, I'm going to give you my email address so that I can get that document I can get that video, I can sign up for that webinar. You see, when you have a very consistent way of capturing leads.

Those leads automatically become warmer than any lead you got on some list you bought because they gave you permission. Every one of us, when we go purchase something online, when we go sign up for a course or a webinar and we put our email address in, we know we're going to get an email from those people.

So when you capture those emails, guys, you have the beginnings of a very strong list. If I had a list of 50 people who have voluntarily given me their email, that list is stronger than a list of 500 of people filled with people who don't know who I am.

So think about that. Go. What are we doing right now to capture leads consistently? If I were you, I'm going and making connections on LinkedIn with people who I might be able to do business with. I'm developing some kind of lead generator to capture email leads. Again, it could be something as basic as a webinar, but it could be a video or a PDF where you put it behind a landing page and they have to download it to get it. But they're giving you their email address voluntarily. Because once you have their email now, you can drip them with really good information, guys. That's how you turn them into very interested buyers. Same thing with social media.

Because the third part that you need to get right, the third thing that you get to you need to get right, and it's seems so obvious, but so few are willing to put in the work, is you have to create content for them.

When I have advisors who come to me and they tell me LinkedIn's stupid and it doesn't work, and then I ask them, well, how are you using it? And I hear that they're going and they're making connections, and when somebody says yes, they immediately start humping their leg. Hey, can we take a meeting? Can we do it? Of course it's not working for you.

You got to create content.

I had another advisor, a client of mine, come to me with all these LinkedIn scripts that she got from somebody who wrote them for her. And it was all these scripts of when somebody accepts, write this, and if they reply this way, reply like this, but if they reply this way, replace reply with this script. I said, hold on, hold on, hold on.

I said, take this piece of advice to heart when somebody accepts your connection on LinkedIn, because remember, that's the lead capture. Just thank them for the connection and then let your content do the talking.

Because if you're at least posting once a week and you're sharing good educational information about your company or how you guys can help your prospects, you're posting content that lets us get to know you. Once in a while. Your content is going to do the talking. They're going to get to know you. They might even start liking you. And then when you do reach back out with a message on LinkedIn to invite them to a chat, the odds are they're going to say yes because they know you.

That's what I'm talking about. On the content side. Now, on the email side of content, now that you've got leads again, you can't just start humping their leg immediately. You have to nurture them. You have to give them value before they're going to take interest in what you have to offer. So my question for you from an email content standpoint is what are you doing on a weekly, bi weekly basis.

Where you are providing this list with good information?

If I were you going into next year, I wouldn't. If you're, I would, I would find a way to make sure your email content is different than what they're seeing. If, if you're an agency, for example, that is sending out a Zywave newsletter, okay, I know it's a lot of. It's easy because it's kind of done for you. Copy paste, hit. The problem with that is they are getting the same, literally the same newsletter from three or four other brokers who also use Iway. That's not going to help you bring value.

But what if you started teaching your prospects through email.

About topics that you can help them with?

Now, there's a theory, there's a phrase in marketing.

That goes like this. Sell. Talk about the why sell the how. So if I'm leading a webinar, I should be talking about why you should do certain things. But if you want to learn how to do them, you should pay me. Right? That's the theory.

But our buyers are becoming more and more attuned to this these days. Never before they're smarter than they've ever been. You actually have to start teaching the how a little bit before they're ever going to buy. So I would challenge you guys to create email content on a regular basis that teaches some of the how to your prospects. I know there's a fear that they might just give it to their broker, but I promise you, if you do that consistently enough, you'll have the right people come back to you for help.

Webinars, another great form of content.

Anybody here likes getting on stage and speaking. So to your prospects, prospective audiences, great opportunity to create content.

But the point here is this. Instead of going far and wide next year and just hoping certain messages fall on the right people, why don't we go a little more narrow next year and get hyper clear on who the right fit for you is.

Who'S a good fit for your process. Let's build the brand message for that type of prospect. Let's build a little platform to capture those leads from them, whether it's on social media or through email. Heck, these days you could use text. I have a text platform. But capture leads.

Because these people are going to be warm, because they are. They, they have given you permission to market them and then be very focused on creating consistent content for them. Whether that is on LinkedIn, whether that's in email, on stage, through webinars, through a podcast, I don't care. But if you do all of these things consistently, you will create brand recognition.

Now, here's the key. This is where I get a lot. I lose a lot of advisors. This does not happen overnight.

We write, we actually do content for some of our clients, social media and email content. And I have some that will come back and say, it's not working. Andy, I'm not getting anybody to reach back out. And I kind of look and I go, how long have we been doing this for you? Oh, two months.

You're not going to get immediate return on this type of strategy. But I will tell you, if you want to get to a point where you have prospects consistently reaching out to you, this is the formula right here.

It's what builds long term sustainable prospecting success. And it's like turning a flywheel. At first, there's a lot of work that goes into this, but you're going to get to a point where you're turning this thing so fast and when you let go, it keeps going. Because you're deploying these three strategies. You know exactly who you're a fit for. You have a system to capture leads and then you're nurturing those leads through your content. You do that consistently, guys, you'll build brand recognition. You'll have prospects coming to you. You'll walk into discovery meetings with a leg up on the competition because they know you better than they know anybody else. And you're already bringing them value better than anybody else. This is how you're going to win moving forward.

Now, if you're masterful on the phone and you're amazing cold caller, take what I have to say with a grain of salt. But I guarantee that's not 99%.

So this is the name of the game, guys. This is how you get it done next year. So here's what I want to do. I'm going to leave a little space. It's 9:22 my time. I want to leave a little space for questions whether it's on the piece of clarity, it's on the piece of capturing leads or the third base which is creating content.

What questions do you guys have?

Okay, I'm not getting any. I'm going to post them to you.

Take a second. I'm going to ask you this question. I asked it before. Who's your favorite client right now?

Write these questions down even if you don't answer them right now. Who's your favorite client right now? Look in your book of business. Who's your favorite client?

Get some clarity.

Once you have the name down. I want you to write the name of the company, I want you to write the name of the person you work with there most, most often.

And then ask yourself the simple question, why are they my favorite? Now the only answer you can't give as to why is because I make the most money on them. That's not a good answer. But the answer you want to give is why are they my favorite demographically? What about their industry size, Whatever I really like working with. Because maybe you love working with blue collar companies but also psychographically, why do I love working with this person? What's what, what is it about their personality, the way they think, how they feel about health insurance, whatever it is, what is it about them I love working with? Because the, the bottom line is guys, you love working with these people because they let you do your best work.

Now the last piece of gaining clarity on your ideal prospect is answering these three questions very clearly. Number one, what is the main problem you solve for your ideal prospect? I know you solve many, but what is the main problem you solve?

Second question, what is the process you use to solve it?

You should have a rinse and repeat, a repeatable and scalable process that you use to help your prospects problems fix your prospects problems, even if they're different problems. You should have a repeatable process.

And then question three is what result does that process create?

I know it doesn't sound like a very sexy answer, but getting clarity on those three questions, guys is going to help you build a brand message for again, you're not all things to all people, nor do you want to be.

This gig is. I just had this conversation with a person, a one on one client of mine. He said, andy, you know, he built this exactly right here. He said, you know, when you, when you do this, this job gets a little bit more fun. And I said, absolutely. When you know who you're going after, you know how to get their attention and you're creating some sweet content for them. You're right. This gig gets a lot more fun. And that's my wish for you guys is let's just make this damn job more fun. If you're not having fun right now, it's time to change it up. If you feel like you're putting so much pressure on every call and every meeting, I've been there. I know what it feels like. But when you just follow this process, I promise this thing's going to get a hell of a lot more fun and enjoyable. You're right. Whoever just whistled or had an alarm, you're right. That's a. That was like the golden nugget right there. Just find a way next year, guys, to have a hell of a lot more fun doing this thing. So with that, I'm going to say one more time, what questions do you guys have? Here's one from Stanley. Is there a good platform for identifying stages within industries? Stanley? Are you referring to public speaking stages? Yes. Yeah.

Hey, Andy, this is Stanley. Yeah, I am. Yeah. You know, because you indicated in one of your deals you talked about you joined the National Speakers Bureau. But let's say, for instance, if you were targeting law firms or private schools.

Are you aware of any, like, clearinghouses or platforms that provide background or.

There's really not a platform, Stanley. But what I would say is if you target an industry, right, that's easy to go find a speaking gig because they may have an association. And I would just go right to the association, say, hey, I have a talk I'd love to give. And if you guys have luncheons or your annual event, I'd love to have an opportunity to speak. The other side of that is, hey, what about, okay, I target CFOs, you target HR. Look at the associations that target those audiences. Obviously, HR is easy. There's SHRM chapters. SHRM, SHRM chapters all in one place. Go speak there. If you target CFOs, there's FEI Financial Executives International, there's CFO Roundtable, CFO Council. Those are all opportunities where you could go speak to your target audience. CEOs are a little more difficult because a lot of them are in groups like Vistage.

It's hard to become a speaker for Vistage. But point is, go speak where your audiences are, whether it's a industry or a target decision maker. Go find where they hang out and speak. Good question. But there's not a specific platform.

Yeah, I will go back, I'll try and find. I've done work in the past through industry associations and that was great marketing.

When you joined the National Speakers Bureau, what was your goal there?

I did it, I purely did it to join their speakers academy.

Okay.

There's a six month academy they run which tells you how to build. It's more about how to build a speaking business and how to market your speaking business than it is about how to speak better. There was bits and pieces to that, but it definitely made me a better speaker about just how to. What does stage presence look like? How do you tell stories at the beginning, how do you engage an audience within seconds? All little tips that often we don't, we take for granted when we speak. So if anybody really wants to take their speaking career next level, I'd highly. Every state has an NSA chapter and I'm sure all of them run a speakers academy. Well worth the investment. Thank you. That, that changed my career, guys. When I, when I invested heavily in my speaking career, becoming a better communicator, everything changed because I realized my knowledge is important but the ability to communicate my knowledge is the most important, important thing.

So.

Andrew.

Yeah man. Stanley, on that note too, for the, the broker advisors on the call, some someone you might look up on LinkedIn is Jeffrey Hazlett and he runs a organization or you know.

Called the C Suite. And it's kind of unique, I think every Friday or every other Friday they actually host kind of a, you can have a cocktail at your desk and, and it's all for the C suite. Representatives from different various industries organizations across the country. You might find some fruit, you know, there in terms of some connections you.

Might be able to make.

I haven't participated in a while but Stanley, that might be a good hunting ground for you. Again, his name is Jeffrey Hazlett. H A Y Z L E T T. I know you can find him on LinkedIn.

Yep, good point, Andrew. Last thing I'll say too, guys, before we hang up, we are just wrapping up our last broker branding academy this year. In fact, today is our last call. Our next one's gonna be January 18th. So start of next year we limit it to 20 producers. But this academy and there's some, some active and Past members on this call that have been in the academy, what we do is help you build brand recognition. It's. It's to go through everything. I just. The three, the three phases. I just talked about three things if you want to be a part of that. I put my email address in the chat box. We're starting to take early bird offers. We have a discount right now through the end of the month if you want to sign up early. So if you want to know more about the program, I put my email in the chat box. Shoot me an email. I'm happy to jump on a call, but we will cap it at 20 producers. And I know we're pretty early right now, but we're already taking some interest from people. So if you want to know more, reach out. We go through all the three things I just talked about here today, but if you guys don't have any more questions, like I said, I.

Want to keep these to half hour. But here's my lasting advice, guys. Make it a goal next year to build brand recognition. Again, it's not, it doesn't happen overnight. But if you focus on getting so clear about who the who your ideal prospect is and it's okay to go narrow no matter what anybody tells you, build a system to capture those leads through, through social media, through email, through webinars.

And then you just create great content for them that they love, that educates them, that brings them value.

And you do it consistently enough, week in and week out, you will build brand recognition and you will have prospects coming to you. It works for everybody we work with. That puts the time in and it's going to work for you. So that's all I got, guys for this week. And a question. Hawks over under Iowa. Hawk guys over under. Scoring seven points against Ohio State. I'm gonna go over Cole just because they'll probably get some cheap ass touchdowns at the end of the game when it's all said and done.

So. But it's going to be an ugly game. Ohio State's too good right now. So with that, guys, thank you. Have a beautiful day. If you want to know about the academy, shoot me an email. I'm happy to chat. Thanks, Andy.

Hello. There we go.

You're right. Whoever just whistled or had an alarm, you're right. That's a. That was like the Golden Nugget right there. Just find a way next year, guys to have a hell of a lot more fun doing this thing. So with that, I'm going to say one more time, what questions do you guys have. Here's one from Stanley. Is there a good platform for identifying stages within industries? Stanley? Are you referring to public speaking stages? Yes. Yeah.

Hey, Andy, this is Stanley. Yeah, I am. Yeah. You know what, because you indicated in one of your deals you talked about you joined the National Speakers Bureau. But let's say, for instance, if you were targeting law firms or, or private.

Schools.

Are you aware of any, like, clearinghouses or platforms that provide background or information?

There's really not a platform, Stanley. But what I would say is if you target an industry, right, that's easy to go find a speaking gig because they may have an association. And I would just go right to the association, say, hey, I have a talk I'd love to give. And if you guys have luncheons or your annual event, I'd love to have an opportunity to speak.