Andy Neary took over a self-funded client in Colorado and watched an HR director tell employees to skip primary care and go straight to specialists. He realized he needed to work with clients who'd actually listen to his ideas, not chase every prospect.
Chapters
I'm working for an agency that does.
Not leverage marketing and I'm in a state nobody knows me.
Oh, crap.
Now, fortunately, I worked for a very kind soul, Claire Volk. To soften my arrival in Colorado, Claire Volk gave me oversight of our large group business. So I came to Colorado with a book I had taken taken over.
And this story starts by sharing one such client that I had an experience with early on in my career at Colorado. It was our largest self funded client.
And I was excited because I had.
Come from the state of Wisconsin where we had spent years with self funding.
I felt like I knew it inside and out.
Here's a group that is self funded. I'm going to be able to share my best ideas.
So we went out to the meeting.
I went with my account exec and.
I can remember sitting in their conference.
Room having a conversation, excited to share these cost containment ideas with them.
And then it happened.
One idea after another was met with absolute rejection.
Every idea I shared with this client.
They absolutely disagreed with.
In fact, the meeting actually got kind of tense.
I still remember the HR director looking me in the eye saying to me.
You guys will love this. She said, andy, I know what you're trying to tell. You're telling me that we have got to promote our employees to go to primary care, but I actually tell our employees to avoid primary care and go right to the specialist.
Like, oh boy, this is the type of client we're dealing with, guys. Have you ever had that client? Do you have that client you wish you could fire right now?
Yeah, that was this one.
And I can remember sitting in that meeting, what was supposed to be my.
Ideal client.
Had me sitting at their conference table going, why am I here?
I'm useless to this group.
And when we left that meeting an.
Hour later, I drove back to our.
Office and I told myself, I can't keep doing this.
I can't have meetings like this with.
Clients who are not going to let me do my best work.
I've got to find a better way to be able to grab attention from the right people. Now, I understand I, I took this client over, I didn't get to pick.
It, but man, I can definitely take control of trying to find the people moving forward who are going to let.
