How To Build Credibility Through Social Media Content | with Amy Essig

If somebody's sitting there going, I just don't know. I don't know if LinkedIn and content's going to be worth my time. What would be your advice?

Do it anyway.

Welcome to the Accelerate your insurance sales podcast. This is the podcast where you'll learn effective marketing and sales strategies from some of the most recognizable names in the insurance industry. We're going to teach you how to turn brand awareness into business growth by becoming the thought leader your prospects seek out. This episode is brought to you by Trucaptive Insurance. What if you could take full control of your healthcare strategy without the financial burdens of traditional insurance? At True Captive Insurance they make that possible. As the only captive in the nation that puts up the majority of collateral on your behalf, they provide financial flexibility from day one, making them an advocating partner for their customer success. True Captives fully customizable plans and cost saving strategies ensure you never have to choose between affordability and quality care. It's time to break free from the limitations of conventional insurance. Take the next step today. Visit trucaptive.com and discover a smarter way to manage health care that is true captive.com hey. Hey. Welcome back to the Accelerate your insurance sales podcast. This is episode eight. I am excited. Normally our even numbered episodes are just me rambling in front of you teaching you something about insurance, marketing and sales. But today I'm not solo. I am joined by the one and only Amy Essig. Amy, welcome.

Thanks for having me.

We're gonna have some fun with this. Amy. For those that may not know who Amy is, Amy is the CEO of our Expert and expert plus programs which used to be called Agency Brand Mastery which we're going to talk about today because we field a lot of questions about content. But for those who are hearing this going wait, Amy, is this the Amy Andy dates? No. I have two Amy's in my life. Amy Essig, the CEO and Amy Clout, my fiance who is also a part of the company. Now she goes by AJ Just so we don't confuse the two but Amy Essig, we're going to go through our Expert Expert plus program today because we field a lot of questions on a weekly basis from people about content. Can can you help us with content? And it's made me realize not a lot. Not very many know we actually do this. And so what I'd like to do is just let's go through the details, almost use it like an faq. But before we get there I want to share a quick story of how Amy Essig ended up on the team at Complete Game Consulting. For those that don't know, Amy and I used to work together years ago at Vulcan Bell. And we, we paired very well together. I kind of led sales. Amy was on the account exec side and we just realized we mesh well, we communicate well, especially with clients. And in 2017, when I made the decision to step away from Vulcan Bell, I said to Amy, hey, I'm going to start a business someday and I'm coming after you. And 2022, I caught her at the right time. She was looking for a new challenge. Is that the right way to say that?

Yep. Well said.

And here we are having, having a fun time building this company at Complete Game Consulting. So, Amy, let's start here. For people that don't know you, I am going to ask you a personal question. Just give a little background of your experience in the insurance industry, if you don't mind sharing. Sure.

Well, I started off in human resources and during that time I got pretty close with our broker. And eventually when I had just mentioned to her kind of as a friend, I said, I think I'm kind of done with this role. I don't know what I'm going to do next. And she was like, how about come work for me, be an account manager. So there I went and there I stayed for 16 years. And when. So this was a local benefits agency out here in Colorado. So when, for those of you that have heard Andy's story about starting to build his brand, that happened when he came to work with us. And so I got to witness the very beginning of your journey through building your brand and building awareness. And so that was just so much fun and so exciting for me. So we worked together for three years there. Yeah, it was really fun.

Yeah, you, you know, you got to see it on the front end and you got to see the good and the bad.

I can remember when I started speaking, it was. There were some train wrecks in there, but, you know, it was, it was a cool journey because I think what you and I both saw. Let me start by saying this. What you and I think both, both experienced were the doors we were opening as a team. Yeah, I remember Claire Volk, the, the, the CEO and found co founder of Oak and Bell at the time, saying, like, we were opening doors to groups we had never opened doors to. Right. And talking with companies, you know, outside of Denver, in Denver that we were, we probably have never gotten into. And I think that's where we really realized what this brand awareness was doing. And.

When I think about our Expert, Expert plus program, which is what we're going to talk about, let me just set the stage. What the heck is Expert, Expert plus, it's still a long standing client. Come to me and say, hey, Andy, all right, man, you got me convinced. We got to be doing content on LinkedIn. But I've got a problem. I don't have time and I'm not going to do it because I'm running my agency. Do you know anybody who can do our content for us? And I said, well, what if I put a team together? He said, sure. So lo and behold, I started seeking out. Now, this is before you even joined the team. I started seeking out partners and I was introduced to a woman by the name Nancy Evans who still runs the social media team for us. She's a partner of ours at byob. And that does not stand for bring your own beer. That stands for be. Build your own brand.

Build your online brand.

Build your online brand. I screwed it up.

And I got her name through a peer, a former client of ours, Chris Byer at Assured Partners. And I said, hey, I need a team that can help me put out content for my clients. And I'll be honest, we kind of piecemealed it together. At first. It was just this hodgepodge of things. And lo and behold, here we are, you know, a couple years later, and it's. I, I would argue it's one of our fastest growing programs. Which is why you made the decision that, hey, I want to run this program and so talk. Let's start here. What excited you? What motivated you? Because you are the CEO of the Expert Expert plus program. What motivated you to say, I want to take the reins of this?

Well, first of all, you keep calling me CEO, which always makes me laugh, by the way.

We don't actually have job titles at the company, so we just make them up as we go. So, yes, for now, you're the CEO.

I love it though. So, yes, What I love about it is that I'm watching our clients get creative. There's that creative element in building content and getting that strategy going and getting them excited about it. And so for me, it was more of I can really get more creative and use that in that area of the business more so than I can operationally. I mean, we worked for two years building processes, right? Getting all those things dialed in. I mean, it really was just Andy and I for a long time. And it's building those processes now. I'm starting to see, oh, this other piece. Working with Nancy's team has been so fun. And so I really, it just, I don't know, it just kind of excited me. I really love watching the transformation that it, that our clients go through when, when they work with us.

You know, one of the things, one of the questions we often get asked, or I would say maybe mistakes that we hear agencies make when they reach out to us for help is what they're really trying to accomplish is they want to create LinkedIn content and use it to literally book appointments. Like they want to go from we post to it, somehow it magically creates an appointment for us. We know that's not the case. In your opinion, Amy, what is the purpose of LinkedIn content?

Very simply, to build awareness. It's just to build awareness about you, about your company, about what you are doing so that you, you know, people can find out if you, if you're not talking about yourself and what you do, then who's doing that for you? You need to be sharing that just for awareness. And it also builds credibility because as we say a lot, if someone Googles you, what are they going to find? And Google yourself, the first thing that's going to come up is your LinkedIn profile, probably. And if it's empty, that's not a good look 100%.

And I wanted you to, I wanted you to share that because my, in my opinion, if you're listening to this episode right now and you know, you need to be producing social media content, but your, your purpose is I want to produce content to book appointments. Stop, don't, don't invest the money, don't do it. You're going to waste your time because that is not the end result. The end result is awareness. And we hear it all the time, Amy, from our clients in the program is, yeah, a lot of people, you know, we've got people now saying, hey, I see your content, I like your content. That's how you know you're building credibility. And by the way, these are prospects saying this, not a buddy. These are prospects saying, hey, I see your content. I really like that. When you hear that from prospects, that equals credibility.

And so I think that's, that's a important piece to start from is social media content. Intent is not appointments, it is awareness.

But not to say that you won't get, you won't get leads, you won't get message. I mean, that, that does happen, but it is not the main thing.

Well, let's start about, let's just, let's just go into the details. So we've got this program, right? And if I'm a producer or an agency or an industry partner, I want people to know, guys, we do this work for industry partners. So if, if you're out there and you sell a product through the broker community, we do your content as well. But what, what are we doing for these people? Because I think they, again, they all get fearful that if I'm going to build this online awareness, it's going to take so much time. It's going to take. You're telling me I got to post in the world, I'm going to do that. How do we help take that off their plate?

Yeah, this is an actually a done for you program now, but I will. I'm just going to back up just a touch because I want to talk about how we help them build their message because one of the first things that we're going to do is sit down with them and really pull out who are you? What makes you unique? What is your message? What do you do for clients? Because once they get that message dialed in, it becomes a lot easier for them to come up with content topics. So that, that is the first step is really defining who you are. And then you can go into, well, what do I specialize in? What's my niche? What am I best at? What makes me unique? And then, and then the topics just kind of start to come. What are you talking to clients about? And so what we do is help them build that brand message, build out who they are, and then we meet with them ongoing to say, what's happening in your world? What could you talk about? What could you share? And then we'll help them. If they're into video, which we hope they are, but not all are, and that's okay. Help them come up with some topics that would be of value to their ideal prospects. I love the filter that you say, Andy, which is, would your favorite client find this information valuable? If the answer is yes, then post it. And so what we do is help them show up on social media every day. We're helping them come up with those topics. And then we're just going to make sure that we're posting for them every single day. Well, Monday through Friday.

Well, and that we're going to talk about that. The power of that. But you said something I want everybody to hear. What if your top clients would find this useful? Post it. Notice what she said. She said your top clients, not your top peers in the industry.

If you're going to use LinkedIn content to grow Your business. The goal is not to add to the echo chamber that is already being posted on LinkedIn every day. You have one job and that is to talk to your prospects, educate your prospects, avoid, ignore everything else. Now, you talked about the building the brand message, something I think people need to hear. Especially if you're listening and you're starting your journey in content, don't just start posting. You got to sit down and ask yourself, yourself the following questions. These are questions we walk our clients through when, when they kick off this program with us. Number one, what do you want to be known for? So if you're going to produce content on LinkedIn, what's your area of expertise? What do you want to be known for? What problem do you want to own? Because you don't want to come on LinkedIn and spray and pray and hope something sticks. You got to have a lane. You're going to own a problem you're going to own. That is how you build thought leadership. Yeah. And I want people to hear the word thought leadership, Amy. I think people get that word wrong. I think they hear thought leadership in our initial thought is it means somebody is the smartest in the industry, they're the most innovative, they're sharing ideas nobody ever has. That's not thought leadership, in my opinion. Thought leadership is if you literally reverse the word. It's the leader of people's thoughts.

If you pick a lane, you're going to own a problem, you're going to own and you know what you want to be known for and you stay in that lane with content and you pump it out every single day. Guess what you're going to do? You're going to lead people's thoughts. And on that topic, LinkedIn is a business to business platform. It is a platform to build credibility and thought leadership, hands down. And you have one job to talk to your prospects. Now, Amy, you talked about Monday through Friday. That sounds like a lot. You're telling me I got to create content every single day? No. Walk us through how we are putting out content for our clients on a daily basis.

Yeah, sure. So I think I mentioned we're meeting with our clients monthly. So this is not also like a set it and forget it program as your content strategy should not be. You always want to be kind of honing it and getting better over time and honing your message. And so we're meeting with them and coming up and just saying, what are the conversations that you're having with your clients? What are the conversations you're having with your Prospects, what are their object objections? You know, what are things that you have to overcome. You meet in our industry, it's a long sales cycle. You got to change their mindset and that it's going to take some time. So what would you want them to know to get them to book that meeting with you? And so then we just take those topics for them, coach them on building a script for a video. They want to record a video on it. Although we will say the best is just, just get on there and rant, just grab your phone and record yourself. That is usually some of the best content. But then we're going to build an article, we can take that topic, help you build out an article for it, and then we're just going to again, so that's two days. Then the rest we're just going to build off of those topics. What were some of those highlights? It's almost like if you didn't do video, what's like a saying, a little quote that we could use that is punchy. That would, you know, get people to think again, matching what is your uniqueness? And so yeah, posting. And then we can just turn that one topic into five days.

Very love. That's what I wanted to hear. So you're telling me all I got to do is record one video or even if I don't do video, you're actually going to kind of take care of the work. If you help me generate the ideas, you're going to take care of the work to make sure we're posting through articles, infographics, quotes, you name it for the whole week.

That's exactly right. Yep.

Awesome.

Make it easy.

Well, and what that leverages, Amy, is a, is a formula we live by which is value times volume equals credibility velocity. The more value you put out there, the more often you do it, the faster you are going to build credibility. And we get the question all the time, Andy, how much is too much content? You can never have too much content if you're delivering value to your prospects. And if you would just sit and focus on who are your top prospects, what content would they need to see in order to have the confidence to hire you and focus on that your content will work. We just help to make sure it gets out every day that it's getting done.

And we like to say too, we are the foundational content for you. Most of what we do for our clients is that educational value content. We encourage you post personal posts, continue to do it. Don't let if you feel inspired, get it out there. Right. And so. And I also love when we can get the team members involved because we can also be posting for them as well. And now you're starting to get their ideas flowing. Maybe they'll record some videos. Let's share all of that so that your entire team is one cohesive unit sharing those same messages.

Yeah. Hey, it's Andy Neary. Thank you for listening to the Accelerate your insurance podcast. Did you know the ideas we share on the show are things we actually specialize in helping you implement? If you want to increase your sales, make more money, and be the thought leader your prospects, reach out to, please go to my LinkedIn profile DM me and sign up for a free discovery call. Again, go to my LinkedIn profile DM me and we'll get you set up for a free, free discovery call. All right, now back to the show. Let's. Let's go down the. The avenue of video for a minute because you. That's one of the options we have. Right. And I think you and I both agree video tends to be the most effective.

Sure.

But not everybody is. Is. Is at that point where they're going to be confident to hit record every day. Before we dive into kind of how we're helping them do it, Actually share your journey a little bit, if you don't mind. Because you've started creating. If you haven't seen Amy's videos, they're getting Damn good on LinkedIn. Talk about your journey. Just like, hey, I was hesitant, I was nervous. What got you to the point where, like, I'm going to hit record and I'm going to start talking.

It first happened because we also run a women's community, and when we're on those calls, I'm looking at a screen of a bunch of women and it's easier to share. It's just more natural.

Right.

We're sharing. So what I would do, my first videos are just. I downloaded that recording, I clipped out my little portion and then put that out. That was, you know, because it was just more natural and it was like, okay. It was a topic that I could. I felt comfortable. It kind of got me over the hump to feel comfortable enough to record my own videos.

That's awesome. Now you're at the point, though. Now you're at the point you are coming on with the intention of recording a video.

Yeah, absolutely. Whenever, you know, you just kind of have to. Have to pounce when you're inspired. I think that's a big thing, too. When you feel it, don't put that off. Just set up your camera, whether your phone or your laptop. Most of mine are done on my laptop on zoom. And I just go on zoom and I hit record and I just start talking. And that way, you know, you can trim off the front and the back. You're getting set up. Whatever. If you mess up, who cares? Try again. You don't need to take 20 takes. Usually that raw, that rawness and naturalness actually will resonate a little bit better.

That's what people want. That's what people want these days. And I. That's what I wanted to actually talk about for a second is, you know, we. We often have to come up with creative ways to help our clients record video. By the way, if you're watching the video right now and you're looking at behind Amy, there is a rotary phone behind her. That is old school. That is awesome.

We have some clients who do struggle with video. They want to do video, but they struggle with. Maybe they're waiting for the perfect moment, which you and I both know that is not correct, by the way. Guys, you don't need to be creating these choreographed videos with the stupid elevator music behind them. Nobody wants those anymore. They want the raw, real version of you. So, Amy, we've had to get a little creative to help some of our clients just get on camera and say the things they want to say, talk to the people listening. But what are we doing to help ensure they're getting that video content out?

Well, as I mentioned, we do do our once a month strategy calls with them, and so we'll record those. And that way, if I ask.