Mindset For Marketing: April 1, 11 AM EST

Foreign.

We are live. It is Friday, 11am Eastern, April 1st, April Fool's Day. But I promise today I'm not going to be fooling you whatsoever. Now I am apologizing that we're starting two minutes late and I'm going to a little recommendation to the Hyatt hotels. Figure out your Internet. It is brutal. I am here in Tempe, Arizona at a conference doing a workshop. So I'm going to do my first LinkedIn Live of the month live from my hotel room. So hope you're having a great Friday morning. What I want to talk about today. So here's what's going to happen. I'm going to be going live every weekday for the month of April, not including weekends. And I'm going to talk about mindset for marketing. I come from if you're joining from the insurance industry, welcome aboard. You might be listening in. And you are in another field, another industry. You sell completely different product. What I want to talk about today is how you can enhance this.

So you can improve your marketing. So let me start with today's LinkedIn Live talking about my story. And I think this is going to help set the stage for all of these lives we're going to do here in the month of April.

When I think about marketing, especially in 2022.

What marketing is about is grabbing the right attention. So I'm going to start with a little story about my past and set the stage for why we talk about a mindset for marketing. So some of you may know that I was fortunate. While it's hard to believe, 20 years ago I played professional baseball. And when I share my stories about pro baseball, a lot of people want to hear the fun stories, the good stories. Who did you pitch against? Did anybody you played with make make it to the major leagues? Yes, all that is true. But here's the real punchline of my pro baseball career. The number one reason.

My pro baseball career only lasted two years is because I failed to stand out. You see, when you're playing a professional sport and it's probably the same for football, basketball, you name it, and baseball, it's really unique because you have the minor leagues and you have three different levels of the minor league system. Hey, Kevin, welcome aboard. Good seeing you. You have three levels of the minor league system and your job is to grab attention. And what's really unique about minor league baseball is in reality you're competing against your teammates because you're all trying to get promoted. You're trying to make it go from single A to Double A to Triple A and then get the big call up to the major leagues. Even coaches are competing, umpires are competing because everybody is trying to get promoted. And if you don't grab attention with your performance, you're going to get lost in the shovel. And for me, it was a double edged sword because I was not a high draft pick. You see a lot of kids come into pro baseball their first round, second round, fifth round, tenth round draft picks. And for me, I was a free agent. Some of you who know me, who've met me, I'm 5 foot 9, 160 pounds, I was 170 pounds as a pitcher. I wasn't an over, wasn't an intimidating presence. And so I signed as a free agent, which meant that I usually got one shot to the high draft picks, nine. And so I had to perform well. The problem was when I got to pro baseball.

I had a lot of fear.

I feared judgment.

Because you're judged every day by scouts, literally judged by stats. I feared comparison.

As via those stats, you're compared to your teammates, to the other guys in the league. But most of all, I feared that failure, which was, holy crap. Every time I take the mound I have to be perfect. Otherwise I could get released tomorrow. And so sharing the story with you is kind of full circle because here I am in Tempe, Arizona. It was just west of here in Maryvale, Arizona where the Milwaukee Brewer spring training organization location facility is. It's where I got released. It was where I spent my last day in pro baseball, just about 20, 30 miles west of here. And so I share that with you because when I talk about my pro baseball career from a mindset perspective, I had the skill. In fact, my first year in Helena, Montana, which when I played for the Helena Brewers, I was nominated by the fans as the most valuable pitcher. So I had the skill. Problem was.

I lacked mindset because I feared comparison, I feared judgment and I feared failure. And that is why my pro baseball career lasted as short as it did. But most importantly, because I feared all those things, I failed to stand out.

And that is exactly what I want to talk to you throughout the month of April about is marketing, about standing out. You see, if you're at a point in your career, maybe you own your business and.

You don't need to grow like you used to. You have a book of business that's large enough, a book of clients that are large enough that supports your lifestyle. You don't need to go and try to grow that business. You're in maintenance Mode, maybe you're 10, five, 10 years out from retirement and you're just kind of on cruise control because you've earned it. Everything I say in the next month, take for a grain of salt. But for everybody else who's listening in, if you are trying to grow right now, your paycheck is responsible for you to grow. Your business needs you to go sell things. You have to stand out. It is impossible to win today without standing out. It is too noisy. Can I. My past has been spent in the insurance industry. There are too many advisors, there's too many solutions for you to think you can negate marketing and actually win business.

And so that's really where we want to start. We're going to start with mindset around marketing. It's. Yes, marketing is important. I just did the workshop here in Tempe yesterday and it was a room full of advisors, many of them agency principals. And that was my message. The first mindset shift we have to make when it comes to marketing is, yes, marketing, it's important. I worked for plenty of agency principals over the years that told me, I don't believe in marketing. We don't need it. Just go out and pound the pavement, make some phone calls, really, for those listening in. How's that going these days? Cold calling as easy as you used to be, you still getting in the car and going in and parking in the industrial park and knocking on doors. How's that going? Hmm. Yeah. You see, everything changed two years ago when we went into the pandemic. The way we market, the way we sell changed forever. And I see some of the faces that are some of the names that are listening in. Jen, thank you. Good to see you again. Lou, good to see you. My story is very simple.

In 2014, I had been in the insurance industry for 13 years. Amy and I made a very important life decision. We decided to move ourselves from Wisconsin to Colorado.

And I went to work for an independent Insurance Agency. Started May 2014. And I quickly realized I had a problem. My problem was I was working for an agency who over historically, didn't have to really spend a lot of time marketing. Therefore, they didn't really put a lot of emphasis on marketing. But number two, I found myself in a market where no one knew who the hell I was and I was supposed to sell insurance. I said, oh, shit.

So I had two choices. I could either do it the way I was taught for so long, which was pick up the phone, smile and dial, or, and. Or I could go pound the pavement right Knock on doors. Or I could try something different. And I knew that if I was in a. If I'm in a market where nobody knows who I am and I think I'm just gonna pick up the phone and make a business grow that way, I might. But it's gonna be long. It's gonna be frustrating. Quite frankly, I suck at cold calling and I hate it.

Or I could try something new. So I decided in May of 2014 I was gonna try something new. What was that? Try something new. I was going to figure out how I was going to.

Share a very clear, direct message, a message people understood, a message that people saw different than what they were hearing from the other insurance advisors they were talking to. And I was going to devise a plan to allow me to share that message far and wide.

And little did I know at that time, this is what I was doing. Looking back, I realized what I was doing now. But my whole goal was to know who I was going after, what I was going to say to them, and how I was going to get that message in front of a lot of them quickly.

And again, picking up a phone, making a bunch of cold calls is the long way to do it. And this is when I realized what it meant to create exponential awareness.

So if we're talking a mindset built for marketing, first mindset shift I talked about is, yes, marketing is important. Your business is dead without it today.

But number two, when it comes to marketing.

I want you to think exponential awareness. You see, if I.

Set a block of time aside to make a bunch of cold calls.

I can only call one prospect at a time.

So if I want to call 100 people today, it's going to take probably a good 90 minutes to two hours, maybe even longer. If I want to go pound the pavement, park my car in an industrial park, and go door to door, I can only knock on one door at a time.

That's called linear awareness.

That's how every single one of us were taught how to sell. It's the only strategy we had 20, 25 years ago.

But so much has changed. So many tools are out there now to help you create exponential awareness. What is exponential awareness?

I can go on LinkedIn just like I am right now, and I can share one message that gets in front of hundreds, thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of eyeballs.

I can write an email campaign and go send that email campaign to hundreds of people at one time.

I can jump on stage and public speak, which I love doing. And I can do talk to dozens, maybe Hundreds of people in the same room at one time, one message. I can have start a podcast and have hundreds of people listen to the podcast. I can host webinars where I have dozens of people come to the webinars and tune in. One message. You see, exponential awareness is about creating one message that allows you to get it in front of a ton of people at one time. And so when I think about the foundation of marketing today with the tools we have like LinkedIn.

It has to start with exponential awareness.

Again. If you think you're going to share a message to one person at a time and you're going to grow a book of business, you're going to grow your company that way, you can, you can try, but it's going to take a long time, it's going to create a lot of frustration.

And you're going to be burnt out before you know it. You may achieve your goals with revenue, but you're going to be burnt out getting there along the way. So the first place I want to start with this month long coaching around mindset for marketing is when you look at your game plan to build and grow your book of business, grow your company. Think of marketing as starting with exponential awareness.

Now, the next objection I hear a lot from a mindset standpoint with marketing is it's too expensive.

That's another objection that I want to address here today is marketing costs too much.

I'm here to tell you I have grown my coaching company, my consulting company upwards to a half million dollars in less than two years. And I don't share that to brag. I share to make a point.

With spending very little marketing dollars.

Might I pay for a platform that helps get my message out? Absolutely. Might I subscribe to LinkedIn Sales Navigator so I can get my message out? Absolutely. We're talking about things that cost less than $100 a month.

You see where people go wrong with marketing and the reason they think marketing costs too much is you hire this agency that knows how to create all this fancy marketing, whether it's your website, whether it's graphic design, you name it. What they are good at is making things look beautiful. But it comes with a lot of money. And the reason you think it costs too much is because it didn't work. Why didn't it work? Because he had a bad message.

I go back to the insurance agency that I worked for in 2014. They gave me the start to the career that I have right now. So I am very grateful and thankful for them.

But when I go back to 2014, 2015. I remember we rebranded as an agency.

It probably cost upwards of $50,000 to rebrand, to develop a new website, create new graphic, new marketing assets. But here was the problem. We went and hired a fancy marketing agency out of Boulder, Colorado. They know what they're doing, they make things look pretty. But guess what? They relied on our message and we didn't have one.

So the reason you believe marketing might cost too much.

Is because.

You'Ve spent money on the looks of marketing and you have completely overlooked the most important part of marketing, the message. And if there's one thing I'm going to focus on here in the month of April, it is how do you develop a message that gets your target prospects to go, that is us.

By the way, I'm doing this and there is a huge bee on the wall. So if you see me go like this, I'm like trying to avoid this be. Anyways, so the next, the next objection is it costs too much. No, it doesn't. Because when you have the message right, the marketing takes care of itself. Hey, Nancy, good to see you. Karim, good to see you. George, good to see you. All the way from Uganda. Damn, man, that is beautiful. All right, so what have we addressed so far? Number one, we have addressed, yes, marketing, Especially for my folks that are sitting in this LinkedIn Live. Thank you for being here. If you're in the insurance industry, yes, marketing, you need it. But number two, it doesn't have to be expensive because when you have a good message, the marketing takes care of itself.

Now, the third place I want to go to today.

Is the most important investment you can make in your marketing plan. Nancy, you summed it up invest in you.

Every single day I talk to insurance advisors, agency principals, industry solutions who know they are not growing the way they want to and they know the gap they are missing is they're not getting enough attention to create enough sales opportunities to do what they do best.

So I share with them how I can help, whether that is my academies, my one on one coaching, my agency, brand mastery program, my workshops, you name it.

And then they look at the investment and they look at the fact it's going to require them to invest in themselves.

And they pause.

I heard, forget who said this was on a podcast that I was listening to this week about investing in yourself. When you don't believe in investing in yourself, it's because you don't believe in yourself.

The reason you don't invest in yourself is because you don't actually believe you can Create a result.

But if there is one asset that you need to invest in in your career, there is no better investment, no better asset than you. It is the one asset that, if you actually take action, will always pay dividends.

And so I see these insurance advisors try to take the short route. They try to just go pull some perfect silver bullet script from somebody. Hell, they try to adopt the brand of some other advisor that happens to be having success. And they fail to do the one thing they have got to do. Invest in themselves.

So if there's one thing you can do right now in your marketing is invest in you, invest in your company's message.

Nancy, you said it exactly right. If you don't invest in yourself, no one is going to do it for you. If you think.

You need help growing your book of business right now, you're not growing as fast as you want to. You're getting in front of prospects, but they're not the right ones.

It's your marketing. It's off. You're not sharing the right message. So the number one thing you need to do is go all in on you, figure out your message. And I'm going to tell you, it is not found in a silver bullet. It is not found in some magical script someone's selling here on LinkedIn.

It's found in you being the best version of you showing up with your personal brand and developing a message that gets your ideal prospect to go, hell, yeah, I am in.

And so Today's episode, Day 1 of Mindset for Marketing wasn't going to start. I wasn't going into any teaching yet. I wasn't going into any strategies, but I wanted to start right here. So for everybody tuning in, Tara, Mark, thank you for joining. Eddie, thank you for joining.

If you start just telling yourself, yes, I need to market myself. No, it does not have to be expensive.

But just develop a message that gets your ideal prospects to want to do business with you. Because here's the punchline. Everybody I see jumping in here is in sales. Sales is a game of who knows you, who likes you, and who trusts you.

When your marketing message is right and you are sharing it through exponential awareness.

You'Re going to get a lot of people to know you. You're going to get a lot of people to eventually like you.

So that when you have the sales opportunities, you're connecting with people who already know you and like you. And I don't know a better recipe for sales success than walking into an opportunity with somebody who already knows you and likes you.

And here's the last mental shift that I want to talk about today when it comes to marketing. With the seven minutes we have left, I keep these to a half an hour. No more, no less.

Marketing is not short term. You have got to get rid of this short term mentality. Again, coming from the insurance industry, we have been taught everything is about short term wins. You host one webinar, why didn't it create five meetings? I want to send one email and dang it, everybody better reply and say I want to schedule a meeting. Marketing is not short term. Creating awareness is not short term. Yes, picking up the phone and dialing in, cold calling, that's short term marketing. Right? I want to pick up the phone and I want to schedule a meeting right now. Well, how easy is that? Well, I make 100 phone calls. What? I might schedule one or two meetings. Okay, how about going door to door, right, that short term, I'm hoping somebody's there and they take the time to talk to me.

Getting on LinkedIn, hosting webinars, having a podcast, getting on stage and speaking, those aren't short term strategies, my friends. Those are long term marketing game plans.

Anybody can get hot for one month.

Hell, anybody can get hot for one quarter. But without a long term marketing game plan to create that exponential awareness for who you are.

There is no way you are going to create a long term sustainable business.

So that is what we're going to be focusing on here in the month of April is what can you do to have a business built for long term success through creating a ton of awareness with your marketing? How can you identify the people you need to be working with? How can you craft a message they want to hear that resonates with them, that says, I don't know who this person is, but I like them and I need to meet them. That's what this mindset for marketing is going to be about.

So for everybody who took the time to jump on today, I want to thank you.

I'm going live every weekday during the month of April. Hell, I'm even going live gang from Florida Keys. Amy and I are going to be on vacation, 28th and 29th. I'm going to be going live from the Florida Keys because I want to drill this message into your head. I've talked to too many advisors, too many agencies lately that don't believe in marketing or they try marketing for two weeks and get pissed off because it didn't create five sales. That's not what this is about.

It's about building a long term successful business through marketing awareness. So if you're in on that, you're going to enjoy these LinkedIn lives. They're going to be at different times of the day, so don't expect these to always be at 11am Quite frankly, I'm putting a half hour in when it fits into my day, but I'm going live every weekday. And as far as creating that message for your ideal audience, building a brand message your audience wants to jump into so you can create a ton of sales opportunities, ton of the right sales opportunities for your prospects or for your business. Excuse me. I am starting my next broker branding academy on May 4th. Enrollment's open, we're almost half full already. So if you want to know more information.

Just text the word Academy to 414-622-1462 Academy 241-462-2162. But I'm going live every weekday. Bring your questions, bring your pen and paper. Hell, as I said in the advertisement, if you want to challenge me on some of this stuff, I'm always open to it. So hope you like that. Guys, you. Yes, you need to market your company. Number two, it does not have to be expensive when the message is right. And number three, marketing is a long term game. It does not create short term wins. So with that in mind, next Monday I'll be back on and we are gonna continue this live jive and we're gonna help you build a marketing message that absolutely kicks ass. So with that being said, have an amazing weekend everybody. Hit me up if you got any questions in my private message on LinkedIn. But you go have an amazing Friday and amazing weekend. Talk soon.