Insurance Agent Sales Playbook: The 3-Step Process To Go From Unknown To Unstoppable [KEYNOTE]

Hey. Hey. Welcome to the Bullpen Sessions podcast, a podcast for driven insurance professionals who are looking to reach their full potential in their insurance careers. This is the place where we help motivated insurance professionals build the right mindset and tools to create more credibility with their target prospects. I'm your host, Andy Neary, former professional athlete turned insurance advisor. Each week you will learn tips and strategies to help you execute a clear prospecting game plan every single week. Clarity creates action. When you're clear, you're confident. When you're confident, you're consistent. When you're consistent, you are unstoppable. All right, let's dive into today's episode. How we doing? Good. I saw, I remember a lot of these faces when I spoke virtually. Now, some of you probably had your cameras off and you weren't paying attention. But today I've got your undivided attention. Let me start by asking you a few questions, guys. Have you ever felt like you're in a thankless job?

We sell health insurance. Right. You ever feel like your ability to perform mundane day to day tasks are often more appreciated by your clients than the advice you give?

Who feels like this in the fourth quarter? Right. Well, what I want to do today is I want to ask you to do something with that advice first. I want you to remember your advice that you are giving today is some of the most important advice in America. And I don't say that as a cliche. Your advice can help a business keep its doors open.

Your advice can be the difference between somebody getting the care they need or waiting until it's too late. Your advice could help keep somebody from filing bankruptcy.

We agree. Okay. Today though, I'm going to ask you to do something with that advice. I need you to get more attention with it.

Whether you have been in this industry for 45 years or four, here's a fact, not enough people know you exist.

Every one of you in this room is successful, otherwise you wouldn't be here. The problem is not enough people know you can help them. And can we agree the market's getting a little noisier these days? Are there more brokers competing with you than there ever have before? Look at this city we're in. Every week, every time I come back, it's different.

You have to find a way to stand out. That is my goal for you today. Now, with this is going to come some hesitation. You're going to have fears. You're going to be afraid to put yourself out there to get your attention. Andy, we're the best kept secret in town. Yeah, that's bad.

You're going to have fear of judgment. You're going to have a fear of comparison. You're going to have be afraid to fail. But if you want to win business today, you have got to grab attention. And my goal today is to get your attention to help you grab the attention you need. Sound fair? So we're going to set. We're going to start with an exercise. I want you guys to close your eyes. Now that I realize this, I'm like, did I do this a couple years ago? We're going to do it again. We're going to have some fun. I want you to go back to your childhood for a second.

And I want you to get the vision of your childhood dream in your head. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

As you get that vision in your head, I mean, love to have anybody just shout out what is in your head. What was your childhood dream? Astronaut. Detective. Detective. Sports center anchor. Nice. SportsCenter anchor. The next Stuart Scott.

All right. Oh, hello. As you guys have that vision in your head, how many of you had a vision of becoming a health insurance broker?

You can open your eyes. We didn't get in this industry by design, did we? Most of us didn't. I know I didn't. When I was a kid, you know what my childhood dream was? It was professional baseball player. I grew up in south central Wisconsin, 30 miles outside of Milwaukee. And I rooted for my hometown team, the Milwaukee Brewers. And my goal was to play for them someday. But I had one small problem.

Does that physique scream professional athlete?

Now my men are going to feel me on this one here. You see, as a kid, I hated attention because most of it was negative.

Kids picked on me. Girls were definitely not attracted to me. And before mental health became a mainstream issue, companies like Levi's made it clear they had made a jean size just for me. Size husky. Where are my husky wearing men? I feel ya.

Now, those glasses guys, if I put them directly in the sun, they would burn ants.

And in grade school, my biggest enemy was not the bully on the playground. My biggest enemy was the annual Presidential Fitness Test. Who remembers that? Now, I have to be honest, I think they created that test for two reasons. Number one, yes, they wanted to assess the fitness of youth in this country. But two, I feel they did it every year to let the fat kids know how out of shape they were.

Because I remember walking into the gym at Park Lawn elementary, looking up at the ropes, the pull up bar the sit and reach box. And sweat would just start coming down my face because I could barely do any push ups. I couldn't do any pull ups. My sit and reach could be measured in centimeters, not inches. It climbed the rope.

And there I was again. Guess what? All the attention was on me and everybody's laughing at me. And all I wanted to do was beat anybody but me, who's been there before.

You see, my childhood could be summed up pretty easily.

I lived in fear.

Fear of comparison, fear of failure, fear of judgment. I didn't want to put myself out there because I was so afraid of what somebody might say. All I wanted to do was fit in.

And as a kid, it was easy to overlook me. I was full of potential, but nowhere close to reaching it.

And that's what I want to talk to you guys about today. Potential. There's a lot of successful people in this room, but if you looked in the mirror, are you reaching your full potential? Is your agency reaching its full potential right now?

When I look across the insurance landscape, I see a lot of agencies, a lot of producers who know what they have to do, they have the knowledge, but they're not reaching their full potential right now. You know why? They're not getting enough attention.

And that's what I want to help solve today. Because could we agree, a lot changed after March of 2020. The way we do business changed forever. The way we grab attention change forever. Here's the thing. We know we need to do things differently, but we're not.

We are also in an industry that's very proud of the past. And it's hard to do new things when you're constantly looking back at the good old days.

Guys, things have changed. They're not going back. The way we put ourselves out there, the way we market, the way we grab attention, we have to change what we're doing. Do you know what the number one strategy is today? To teach a new 22 year old visor to prospect. Anybody got a guess? What is it?

Where's my phone? The good old cold call. Guys, think about this right now. This is still the number one strategy we have today. Anybody know how many calls it takes to get one prospect on the phone today? Anybody have a guess just to get them on the phone?

18.

Just to get them on the phone. So if I want to get 10 prospects on the phone, how many calls do I have to make?

180. If I dial a mile a minute, which I can't, that's three hours to get 10 people on the phone. Yet this is how we're training our 22 year old producers. The game has changed. You see, when I look at the industry right now, we have three big challenges we have to overcome. Number one.

We'Re still teaching new dogs old tricks. I was giving a talk. Preston, are you in the room? You spoke at the International DI Society as well, right? I spoke at the International DI Society event a couple years ago and I was standing in a room just like this and I looked over against the wall and there was a gentleman in his early 70s. I said, sir, how long have you been around? Or how long? How long have you been in the industry? That was a bad question. How long have you been in the industry? He said, 45 years. I said, when you got in the industry 45 years ago, how were you taught to sell? He said, I was given a phone book, a desk and a plan to go door to door, which is what I expected him to say. And then I looked at the center of the room and there was a woman in her upper 20s, early 30s. I said, Ma', am, how long have you been in the business? Said, three years. I said, how were you taught to sell? She almost gave me the same answer. Two producers, four decades apart, taught the same way. We have a problem. Gotta change this. And the reason I bring this up is I'm watching too many good, young, energetic producers come into this industry and leave three to four years later dejected and burnt out because nobody is helping them. This is why my company exists. Challenge number two, we're putting the wrong message out there.

When I ask most producers who your ideal prospect is, the answer I get most often, is anybody willing to say yes to me?

We don't even know who we're targeting right now. We got to get clear about who we're going after. We are not a fit for everybody. And the third challenge is all of our marketing is still short term focused. Andy, I am only willing to spend marketing dollars today if it produces an appointment tomorrow. We have to start thinking longer term.

If you're going to grow your business. Question here. How many in the room are within three or four years of retiring? I see a show of hands. Who, if you're close, I'm going to be honest today, take what I have to say with a grain of salt. But who is here in full growth mode right now? Who's trying to grow their business? This is what you are going to love, what you have to hear today. Because if we can overcome these challenges, if we can provide A new way to grab attention from the market. Guys, you're going to stand out, you're going to look different. Who would like to have prospects coming to them?

Guys, I was in the industry for 22 years. I was selling health insurance for 22 years. I had the same problem. For the first 10 years of my career, I was terrible. You know why? I didn't want to change. All I wanted to do was fit in. I didn't want to put myself out there, but nobody was training me. I was given the old, good old go get them kid. And in 10 years into the industry, I almost got out because I felt dejected and burnt out. I had no tools, I had no training. I feared failure. I feared comparison. I feared judgment. I feared I was a failure. Instead of reaching my full potential, all I ever reached was the end of my salary guarantee.

Who's been there?

So what we're going to challenge each I'm going to challenge you guys to do today is think differently. You might push back at what I have to say and that's okay. But I want to give you guys a new way of prospecting because my career changed when I stumbled on something we call the complete game marketing playbook today. Didn't call it at the time, but when I realized I had to build my own system, I had to create a way for me to go grab attention from a market, quite frankly, who didn't know who I was. But I had to build a way, a machine, so that I could get a lot of attention quick and I could actually have prospects coming to me. That's what I'm going to teach to you guys today. Is that fair? It has four phases. Clarity, capture, content and convert. Now, we have enough time for clarity today, but what this is about today, folks, is are you clear on who you're targeting and what you're saying to them? Are you capturing qualified leads consistently? Are you using content, which we're going to talk about to create awareness and credibility? And then are you converting them into clients consistently? This is the name of the game today.

When I stumbled upon this, my career changed. I started selling more, I started winning more, I started having more fun. But most importantly, I was actually shocked at I had people coming to me.

Because the three most important questions I want to help you guys answer today are this right here. The core pillars of an effective marketing game plan come down to who are you talking to.

What are you saying to them, and where are you saying it? If I do my job in the next 35, 40 minutes, we are going to answer these three questions right here. So my goal today, guys, we're going to have some fun. I'm going to entertain you a little bit. I'm going to educate you. If you take notes on a piece of paper, take notes on a phone, get ready because this is going to be very tactical. I want to help you guys out. Should we dive in? All right, so. So let's start with who are you talking to? 2014, Amy and I decide we're going to make a big life change. We decided it's time to move from Wisconsin, leave our family and move out to Colorado. So here I am selling health insurance for a small independent agency in a market nobody knows who I am. And I can remember about two weeks into the job, sitting at the conference table, we're having a sales meeting. And I look around the room and I'm like, hey, what's our marketing plan?

And every single face around the table looked at me with no answer.

And I remember sitting in the chair, looking down, going, what did I just do? How am I going to sell health insurance in a market where nobody knows who I am?

And I realized in that moment, I was working for an agency owned by a producer who started his own agency. And he was the only producer for 30 years, I was the first producer he had ever hired. So he had no plan. It was up to me to create the plan. And I said, I've got two choices. I could do it the way I was taught, cold calls, pound the pavement network, or I could try something different. Now in 2014, guys trying something different in this industry was kind of frowned upon. I had friends looking at me like, what are you doing, man? We don't do this in the insurance industry. Go pick up the phone. I said, I got to give this a shot. This is my chance. It's clean slate. I'm going to do something. And lo and behold, it worked. Now here's the mistake I made. I went into a new market, letting my ego take the steering wheel. I thought I had an advantage selling self funded plants.

Colorado was a pretty new market to self funding. I'd been selling self funding for years in Wisconsin. I thought I had a huge knowledge advantage. And off I went, puking all my knowledge on everybody who was willing to listen. You guys know how many accounts I sold in year one.

Because I was talking to the wrong people. I thought everybody wanted to hear that message. I thought everybody wanted to hear about my message. Everybody wanted to hear about me. And I realized no one cares. And I Was talking to the wrong people. And my epiphany occurred during a client meeting. I was given a book of business and I'm sitting with this client and everything I'm sharing with them. They're arguing with me on every strategy I give them they don't want to do. They literally were arguing as to why we shouldn't do this. And I can remember sitting there asking myself, why am I here?

And it was in that moment I went back to the office and I said, I have got to have a better strategy. I have got to be talking to the right people. I have to have a way to know that I'm talking to the right people. And this is when I stumbled upon this right here. When you're ideal prospect is clear, your path to revenue is near. Let me ask you a question. You don't need to answer it. Are you absolutely clear on who you're targeting right now? Is your agency clear on who is the best fit for your business?

If you're not, you're going to like the next five minutes because we're going to walk through an exercise called the five star prospect profile. We're going to answer five questions very clearly. This is the tactical part to help you guys get some clarity on your ideal prospect. Too many advisors today don't have clarity on who their ideal prospect is. Question number one. Who is your favorite client today? I want you to think about your book of business. Who is the one client you wish you could replicate over and over and over again?

Now here's a fun fact, guys. If I said, who's the one client you wish you could get rid of tomorrow? You would write that name faster.

But who is your favorite client today? I want you to write down the name of the business, maybe the name of the contact. Who is your favorite today? This is the person. When you see their name pop up on the calendar, you get fired up.

Now the next question is why?

And there's only one answer you can't give me, Andy. They are my favorite because I make the most money on them.

Now, there's two ways you define an ideal client. Demographics and psychographics. Demographics are like an athlete's height, weight and speed. What is it about this company you love working with or this individual? Maybe it's the industry they're in. Maybe it's the number of employees they have. Maybe it's because they're self funded. Or what is it about this company demographically that makes them a great fit for you in the benefit space? It's usually the Size of the group, the location of the group, maybe the industry of the group. What makes them such a good fit? However.

You can't identify an ideal prospect on demographics alone. I have never had a client say to me, andy, our favorite client today is ABC Manufacturing because they're a manufacturer with 75 employees. The owner's a jerk. He treats his employees like crap. He doesn't listen to anything I say. But he is a manufacturer with 75 employees, so they're our favorite. No one's ever said that. It's because you have to have the psychographics. Look at that name on your piece of paper.

Who are they up here?

What do they stand for? What do they believe? And I'm not talking politics and religion. What is it? What do they believe about what you sell?

The reason that name is your favorite is because they let you do your best work.

Wouldn't it be fun if you had a book of business with clients who let you do your best work?

And it's because you and them are psychographically aligned.

They believe what you believe. They stand for what you stand for. They have the same beliefs around health insurance. Let's go find more people like that.

Question number three. What problem do you solve? Now, I know you solve a lot of problems.

But what is the one you solve better than anybody else? I guarantee there's one problem your agency solves or your company. If you're a partner of the industry, you solve better than any else.

When it comes to marketing and getting attention, let's focus on the thing you do best.

Imagine your pipeline is filled with prospects who have the problem you solve best. Do you believe you're going to close a little more business?

If you put out the right message, this is what you can do. So think about the problem you solve better than anybody else. Now back it up with a process. What is your process you use to solve it? You may not realize you have a process today, but I guarantee there's something you and your team do on a repeated basis to help turn an unhappy prospect into a raving fan. What is that process? This is what takes your prospects from where they are today and to where they want to be. What is that process you use to help your prospects, your clients, have successful?

And last but not least, what result does that process create.

After they work with you? After they hire you? After they've gone through that process? What is their life going to look like now?

So the five star prospect profile is all about getting clarity around your ideal prospect. Who are they? Why are they so good. What problem do you love solving? What's the process you use to solve it? And then what will their life look like after you solve it? Because if you start grabbing attention with that message, guess who you're going to start attracting?

Not just any prospect, the right prospect.

And remember this, the riches are in the psychographic niches.

When you find prospects who are psychographic fit for you guys, you have struck gold. These are the people that are going to let you do your best work. These are the wins that almost feel too easy because you guys are such in such alignment. This is the name of the game today. This is what we want to strive for. Let's get targeted with who we're trying to get go after. Remember, you are not a fit for everybody and not everybody's a fit for you. You all right, now let's talk about what you're going to say to them now. You know who. Let's talk about the what. Fast forward 2017. I made a decision in late 2016 that I was going to use public speaking to grow my business. This was going to be a prospecting avenue for me. It's one of the most effective strategies you can do to grow your business, right, because you have the undivided attention of an entire room. So I joined a national Speakers association speakers academy and I hired a speaker speaking Coach. Till early January 2017. I get my first shot, put my name in a hat for a benefits conference in Denver. Truth be told, don't do a lot of whole research about it, but I put my hat in the ring and I got picked. So on a cold January morning, I drive down to Denver through traffic, get ushered into a breakout room about 8th of the size of this. Set up my PowerPoint and I come over to the door to start meeting people. And after nine people, they shut the door and I can remember going, seriously? I drove all the way down here to talk to nine people.

So I walked over to the corner of the room, gave myself a pep talk, and I said, dude, this is what you want to do. Give it everything you got. So I delivered a talk on how to build a better benefits plan for less money.

The talk was okay, but what happened after the talk is what gave me the epiphany. You see, after the talk, I was setting up or breaking down my PowerPoint, putting stuff in my backpack, and one of the attendees had come up to me and he said, hey man.

That was one of the best health insurance talks I've ever heard. I have never heard anybody talk about Health insurance that way before. This is exactly what my team's talking about. Would you mind jumping on a call with my team? I said, sure. So he hands me his card. And the name on his card means nothing to anybody in this room. His name was Duncan McHalef, Director of Total Rewards, but the company he works for, everybody knows. And I went, oh, crap.

This public speech just got the attention of a Fortune 50 company.

Now I know where everybody's head's going. Andy, did you win the account? I did not, because we weren't big enough. But what I realized was. Huh?

When you put the right message in front of the right people, you can get any attention you want, and you'll never know what kind of doors you might open.

It's not about your knowledge. It's not about how long you've been in the industry. It's about what's coming out of your mouth.

And in that moment, I made an effort that if we dial in the message of who we are talking about, who we are trying to talk to, we are going to scale our agency in a way we've never seen before. Now, this little side note, what I didn't realize is this conference was intended to be small because every company in there was huge.

But the lesson I learned was this. Clear communication creates a clear connection.

So I'm going to show you just a quick little exercise on how you can build a better message. Who would like that better message for your prospects? Okay, Spencer, this is going to look really familiar, my friend. We call it the brand script story selling formula. I am a certified story brand guy. I don't know if anybody has ever heard of the book building a story brand. They're based right out of here in Nashville. Spencer was a guide himself as well. Guys, here are the form. Whoa. Here are the formulas for telling a good story. Marketing is storytelling. And this script right here, by the way, is going to ruin every movie you watch from here on out. It's going to ruin every book you read from here and out, because they're all made the same way. You want to tell good stories in marketing to get somebody's attention. It starts with a hero that has a goal but has a problem that needs a guide who has a plan to avoid failure and have success.

If you want to ratchet your marketing message up, all you got to do is follow that right there. Now, here's the key. Who's the hero.

You or the prospect?

Prospect. Biggest mistake we make in the insurance industry is we tell our story. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. How long you've been around, Nobody cares about all the preferred partnerships you have. Nobody cares. You're the best negotiator in town. They just want to know what's in it for them.

If you simply shift the story from yours to theirs, your marketing will be 10 times better.

So I urge everybody in this room to take time and sit down and write out this story for your ideal prospect. Who are they demographically and psychographically? What is it they're trying to accomplish? What's their problem? What is your plan? What's the plan? You have to have success? How do you help them avoid failure? And what does success look like for them when they hire you? You put that into a marketing message, folks. You're going to get somebody's attention. Put that on your website, put that in your LinkedIn profile, put that on all your marketing slicks. You will get people's attention.

Because at the end of the day, what we are talking about is directing the right message at the right prospect. And if you do that, guys, you will win more opportunities in less tries. Instead of taking 20 proposals to close four pieces of business, it will take 10 proposals to close four pieces of business. Because you're talking to the right people. They're already buying into the story you're telling them.

Hey, hey. Quick announcement. If you are an insurance professional looking to optimize the way you prospect and generate leads and you find yourself intrigued by LinkedIn but just don't know where to start, I want to talk to you about the Social Media Sales Academy. Listen, the idea of diving into social media and putting yourself out there can be daunting and the fear of presenting your best self online is real. But let's face it, the traditional methods of prospecting are failing you and it is time for a change. Who is the Social Media Sales Academy for? If you are a driven insurance professional looking to grow your revenue but strapped for time, you're looking for a more efficient way to prospect. And you are just watching others have success on the platform and you want to have the same success. I want to talk to you over six weeks. You are going to learn directly from me the ins and outs of LinkedIn using our proprietary playbook, the LinkedIn Diamond Playbook. By joining the academy, you are going to learn how to create a prospect friendly LinkedIn profile, how to find your ideal prospects and send connection requests that actually get accepted. You're gonna learn how to post content that engages and attracts your ideal prospect. You'll learn how to show up on video with Confidence. And you're gonna learn how to send direct messages that turn connections into sales conversations. If this sounds like something you know you need to do, I want you to go to completegameconsulting.com academy. That is completegameconsulting.com Academy. You'll jump on a call with us, see if it's a fit for you, and we'll get you enrolled. The next class starts on May 1st. I hope to talk to you soon. So now we have solved who we're going after. We know what we're going to say to them. We have one more question to answer. Where are you saying.

2019?

Amy and I, still living in Colorado, decide we are going to go down to Denver and spend a day at a Tony Robbins event. Anybody ever go to a Tony Robbins event? Those things are no short term affair, are they? Those things last for hours. So we drive down there and as you know, Tony doesn't come on until the afternoon. He has this lineup of speakers in the morning. And midway through the morning, this guy pops up named Gary V. Gary Vaynerchuk. Now, up until that point, I had never heard of this guy. All I knew is, wow, this guy is standing on stage dropping a lot of F bombs.

But I'm like, his message is spot on.

And so when we left the event later that night, I went home, looked him up on YouTube and I started watching his videos every morning religiously, I still do today. And I was starting to pay attention to what he was saying and I'm like, he's got some really good points here that are making a lot of sense to me. Number one.

He said, if you want to grow your business today, you have got to think of yourself like a media company. You are a media company that happens to sell health insurance. Number two, you have got to dominate page one of Google. When people look you up, they better see a lot of things.

But it was the last thing he said that made me go, I'm all in. He said, if you put out enough content, if you become the media company that brings so much value to your market, you will literally guilt people into doing business with you. I said, where do I sign up?

This is how Complete Game Consulting was built.

It was built because I said, wait a second, if I can become that media company and pump out content, maybe I can teach others how to do this. And in 2021, guys, I sold my book of business and I went all in on this program because I said there is a huge opportunity to help more advisors do what I had to do for myself because so many people are not living up to their full potential. They're successful. Jesus. Their P and L says they're successful.

But they're not reaching their full potential. By the way, I do that, guys, just to keep you awake.

So here's my question for you guys.

When your prospects Google you, what are they going to find?

They're going to look you up. This is how we do business today. Before a prospect hires you, they're going to look you up. What are they going to find?

We had some referrals come in a couple weeks ago, and our director of marketing went online, looked up the agency so they could get some contact information. You know what happened? Couldn't even find them on page one.

You're losing credibility every day we can't find you. This is the number one question we have to answer today in marketing. When somebody googles you, what are they going to find?

Because exponential awareness leads to exponential growth. Remember I talked about the phone call still being the number one.

Strategy for training advisors? Guys, here's the problem with cold calling today.

How many people can I call with one call?

One. So if I want to try to reach 100 people, how many calls do I have to make? 100. Right? And I'm not going to get 100 people on 100 calls. What if you could put one message in front of thousands at one time?

Why am I speaking in front of a room right now? There's a hundred of you sitting in this room. I'm having one Message go to 100 people at 1 time. What does your social media presence look like right now? Are you putting content out there on LinkedIn or Facebook, wherever your market is to get one message in front of a lot of people? Are you hosting webinars? Heck, who here. Does anybody here have a podcast? Got one hand up over there. Great. Podcast guys is a way to get a message in front of a lot of people at one time. The name of the game today is exponential awareness. We have got to get more people to know you exist. Here's the challenge.

It doesn't create an overnight win.

But if we can build enough awareness and credibility.

When people decide they might hire you and they look you up, you're going to have all the credibility you will ever need.

Because here's the rule of.

We trust people we see.

We trust people we know, and we trust people we learn from.

Anybody here. Follow somebody on social media that you have never met. Who do you follow, sir? Got a name?

Christian Brendel. Have you ever Met him you trust. If he came out and he endorsed a product, you might even consider it. Right? But he's never met the guy. Hmm.

We trust people we see, we trust people we know, and we trust people we learn from. The reason everyone in this room probably has somebody they trust they've never met is because you see them all the time and you're learning from them. Guys, every single person in this room can do the same thing for their prospects. But what we have to do to make this a success in this industry is we have to start putting that type of activity at the same level as a cold call. It's as important today as picking up the phone.

If you want to build credibility, it comes down to two things. Value and value.

How much value are you going to deliver to your prospects and how often are you going to do it? The more value you put in your content, whether it's on your website, it's on your LinkedIn profile, maybe it's in a podcast or it's a webinar, a public speaking engagement, and the more often you do it, the faster you are going to build credibility with your prospects.

What I want to help you do is build a sphere of influence. Back in the day, when I got in the business in 2001, you know what my sphere of influence was? It was the good old Rolodex.

How many of my younger producers don't even know what a Rolodex is? Anybody? Okay, guys, this is today's sphere of influence. I want you to leave today and I want you to go back and say, what does our website presence look like? What does our social media presence look like? What does our email presence look like? Our YouTube presence? If we do video? Because when people Google you outside of email, that's all the stuff that's going to pop up.

And the more they see, the more they go.

We can hire these people. We have the confidence they can do the job.

When I say personal and homeowner. Homeowners and auto insurance guys, what companies do you think of.

State Farm? All State and Progressive. Why State Farm?

Jake from State Farm. Why Allstate Mayhem? Why Progressive Flow? Are they the best insurance products in the game?

Doesn't matter.

Awareness. They have all the credibility because we see them all the time.

That's the name of the game today. Because here is the punchline, gang. If you can build a sphere of influence with a better presence.

You'Re going to create searchability. Searchability is going to lead to credibility. Credibility is going to lead to profitability.

So when you do pick up the phone, you do send the direct emails, but it's backed with all this presence, guys, you have all the credibility you will ever need. This is how you go beat Willis Towers. Watson. Sorry, Adam. This is how you go beat Marsh McLennan. You go beat Aon. You know why they're winning? They got presents.

Now, let me give you an example. Anybody know this guy.

Or seen him on LinkedIn?

Okay, let me share his story. So Kris is a client. He's in Fort Worth, Texas, is with Hotchkiss Insurance. So Chris came to me April 2022. He's like, Man, I have got to build a better presence. And he had his doubts. So we worked together, and he started creating a lot of LinkedIn content. He wanted to create a content strategy. So off he went. He started recording videos every day. Ninety days later, he texts me. He says, man, I don't think this is working. You know, I got friends making fun of me. They're saying, what, are you trying to become famous? I said, man, just keep the blinders on. Keep at it.

Late October, he gets a direct message on LinkedIn from a prospect. Prospect says, hey, Kris, really like the videos you're putting out there. Would love to meet with you, if you don't mind. That led to a $70,000 AOR on January 1st.

Gets better. He's posting every day. He's pumping out content, video content. February 23rd, he gets invited to participate in RFP. He reluctantly does it because he doesn't like RFPs. He's up against seven other advisors, all with large national firms.

Calls me in early April, almost crying because he won.

And I asked him, selfishly, I said, chris, did your content have anything to do with the win? He said, absolutely. He said, we had three different finalist meetings, and when they called me to tell me they were hiring me, they said, because you did so well in the finalist meeting, but we got to see your content every day on LinkedIn. You had the most credibility.

That was a million dollar account.

Now it gets better.

This summer, that CEO of that 3500 Life Group introduces Chris to a 7000 Life Group.

And I just had breakfast with him a few weeks ago, and he said, andy, when I went in for that meeting, it was the strangest feeling I've ever had. Who here would like to talk to a 7,000 life group who would be a little nervous, a little giddy, going into a 7,000 life opportunity? He said, I was so nervous, but when I walked in, I was the celebrity.

They literally Sat down and said, chris, we are so excited to have you here. We know how busy you are. Thank you for taking the time to be here. And in his head he's going, are you kidding me? I'm the one freaking out.

But this is what I'm talking about, folks. This is what happens when you build awareness. This isn't a selfish thing, by the way. This is how we grow our business today. Because when people think about hiring you, they're going to look you up and what are they going to find?

Now, I do want to share this quickly and then I'm going to move on. If you're hearing me right now and you're super excited about what's possible, you're like, andy, I get it, we've got to create more content. I just don't know where to start or I don't have the time. I do want to invite you to something, if you don't mind. We host a social Media Sales Academy four times a year. Our next one starts May 1. That QR code just puts you on my calendar. If you want to know more, schedule a call. If you want to learn more, we teach you how to use LinkedIn to grow your business, how to create content, how to set up your profile, all the good stuff. So if you want to know more, guys, hit the code, take a picture.

Let's get on the calendar. We teach you over six weeks what I taught Chris, what Chris has been doing. So if you want to know more, schedule a call with us. I told Phil I'd make that message or that announcement for you guys. So let me wrap by saying this, guys, at the beginning of the talk.

I told you my childhood dream was to become a Milwaukee Brewer, right? What I didn't tell you is how close I got.

So as a kid, attention was my kryptonite for sure, right? But for whatever reason, there was one place I never felt out of place getting it, and that was on the pitcher's mound. You know, that 18 foot diameter circle, 60ft, 6 inches from home plate always felt safe for me. It's actually where attention found me. It must be these mics.

So I grew out of my childhood chunkiness and I went on to have a very successful high school baseball career playing for my dad, which gave me the opportunity to pitch at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Now, my four year career at UWM was a roller coaster between just wanting to fit in and doing everything I had to do to stand out. My freshman sophomore year, all I wanted to do was fit in. My statistics reflected it. Junior and senior year, I did everything I had to do to get the attention to stand out. And when my senior season ended, I was offered an opportunity to sign a free agent contract with Milwaukee Brewers. So here's my chance to live out my childhood dream. Right? Well, fast forward to June. That summer, I'm pitching for the Helena Brewers. We're in Missoula, Montana. I think I may have shared the story two years ago, but I were in Missoula, Montana, and I can remember that night like it was yesterday. Number one, it was really hot. The sun was setting, and it was like a burnt orange red because there's wildfires burning around Missoula. 5,000 fans in the stadium, which was a sellout. And my parents were in the crowd to watch their son play pro baseball for the first time.

And that night, our staff ace, Ben Wallace, was terrible. So the call comes down to the bullpen in the third inning. Get near you. Up. Get him loose. So I jump up, stretch out my arm, my legs, and I start warming up. Three minutes later, jogging into the. Into the game, towards the pitcher's mound, right into this obnoxious crowd. So I get to the pitcher's mound, I grab the ball from Dan Norman, our manager, and I look to the on deck circle, and it's Luis Torero, one of the top prospects in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. So I'm coming in to get him out. Here's my chance to grab attention, right? Here's my chance to prove I fit in. So I start warming up. And as I start warming up, the crowd starts chanting. And little by little, the chanting gets louder. And after my fourth pitch, I actually can hear what they're chanting. How can you pitch when you're 5 foot 6? How can you pitch when you're 5 foot 6?

Now, in that moment, something happened.

All of my childhood fears came back.

Fear of comparison. Fear of judgment. Fear of failure.

I was standing on the one place I felt so safe for so many years. And now I felt out of place, felt like I didn't belong. My mind was saying, yeah, what right do I have to stand on the mound and face a guy like Luis Torero? I'm not a high draft pick. I don't throw 95 miles an hour. Who am I?

Instead of being ready to face him, I was gripped with anxiety.

Guys, two years later, I was cut. Childhood dream was over. It was shattered. And when I look back at my pro baseball career, I realize something very important I want to share with you guys today. And that's the message of attention. If you're just trying to fit in right now as an agency, you're happy being the best kept secret in town. Somebody else is grabbing the attention. Somebody else is going to win the business and you are never going to hit your full potential. One of the reasons I am so driven to help this industry right now, and I'm driven to help insurance advisors reach their full potential is because I know I didn't do it in my career in baseball. Now let me share one more story as I wrap to tell you why important or why attention matters today.

Can we agree the pandemic had a big impact on this industry?

You know, mental health was a big issue coming out of the pandemic and our industry was not sheltered from that. So.

2021, I'm in the middle of building this business, guys. I'm throwing content out there as Gary Vee tells me to do. And I have to be honest, there were times I'm like, what am I doing this for? Is anybody listening? Is anybody watching? Does anybody care? I made it all about me. Then I got a text message in August of 2021 that changed everything. It was a peer of mine in the industry who I hadn't seen in a few years. He said, hey man, can we jump on a call? Said, sure.

So a couple days later we jump on Zoom. Now I think we're just jumping on to catch up, but I would soon learn it was much more than that. He said, hey man, I wanted to get on Zoom because I wanted to thank you.

I said, okay, what did I do? I haven't seen you in two years. Said, hey man, I've had a pretty rough two year patch. This guy went through a really rocky divorce right before the pandemic. He actually had a very bad bout with COVID He was hospitalized touch and go. And he had hit a Point in 2021 where he thought about giving up. He said, hey man.

I reached a point this year where I thought about ending it all.

He said, I wanted to get on Zoom to thank you because your content kept me going.

I just want to thank you for keeping me here.

I remember sitting on the other end of that Zoom going.

You are such a jerk. Because up until that point, I had made it all about me.

Is anybody listening? Is anybody watching? Does anybody care? I had made attention all about me. But I realized in that moment it has nothing to do with you. So my ask of you today as I close is, please take what I had to say today seriously. Go back to your teams, figure out who you're targeting, figure out what you're going to say to them, figure out where you're going to put it. And by all means, please grab as much attention as you possibly can because your prospects need to see you. Thank you guys. That's all we got for today's episode of the Bullpen Sessions podcast. One thing that would really help us both and other new potential listeners is for you to rate this show and leave a comment in itunes, Stitcher, or wherever you tun tune in to listen to the show. Also, make sure to link up with us@completegameconsulting.com on social media. And please share this podcast with anyone who you think might enjoy it. Until next time. Remember, clarity creates confidence. Confidence creates consistency. Consistency makes you unstoppable.