Sales Hacks Elite Producers Use to Scale their Revenue

World has changed, the game of sales has changed, and how a producer shows up has changed. And the most important thing you must do as a producer is let go of the ego so you can bring more value every single day to your buyers, so you can get the attention of your ideal buyers. 2, be vulnerable when you get the chance to meet with your buyers. Be human, be relatable. And then at the end of the day, validate and help them Make the right decision, even if it doesn't mean they should hire you right now. Hey, hey, welcome back to the Accelerate Your Insurance Sales Podcast. Andy Neary here, CEO and founder of Complete Game Consulting. Welcome back to the show. Today, I'm going to share 3 takeaways that I have leveraged over the last 5 or 6 weeks with all the business travel I have been embarking on and how you can apply these takeaways to elevate your sales. Welcome back to the show. If you are a weekly listener, I want to thank you. I am super grateful that you tune in every week. I hope you, uh, I continue to bring value through these episodes. When I feel it appropriate, I go solo. I don't have a guest today because I have something to say to you that I think is going to be helpful. If you're a new listener, welcome. Welcome back. Maybe I met you at one of the workshops I've hosted recently or one of the conferences I've spoken at. Well, I have to tell you, I am, I'm in the middle of some business travel right now. I call it like a road trip here. I'm recording this on September 20th. It's Sunday, and this is the start of week number 6 of an 8-week road trip where I have been delivering workshops to agencies and keynote talks to at conferences. Now, I haven't been gone the entire time. These a lot of these have been quick in and out trips, but every week for the past five to six weeks, I've been traveling. And you know what's really interesting about business travel, and it's something that I actually have come to enjoy because. I need to be forced to do this once in a while is 2 things. Number one, it forces you to be present. You really have to be present, you know, in the moment working with a client or speaking at a conference, networking with people at that conference. But the other one, which is a bigger changer from game changer for me, has been the letting go of control. You know, when you're on business travel, you definitely have to learn how to let go of control. Number one, you can't control whether flights are going to be on time or not. Fortunately, my flights have all been on time the last 5 weeks. But number 2, you also have to let go of trying to be so productive. Maybe you got to let your team do more of the work while you're gone, and you just have to let go and let others step in and help you while you are gone because you just don't have as much time as you normally do when you're at the office. And so I have definitely had to learn that, and it's actually been pretty rewarding over the last 5 weeks. But what I want to talk to you about today is over the past 5 weeks with all these travels, you know, I've, I've definitely learned a few things about myself and about our clients and the market. And I want to use 3 takeaways I've applied or I've learned in the last 5, 6 weeks and how I think they might apply to your sales. Maybe you're trying to go strong here to the finish line in 2026, or you're already starting to think about what 2027 looks like. I really want to use today's episode to help you. But now here's going to be the key. 3 takeaways I'm going to share with you are going to require you to park your ego. I know I've had to do that over the past few weeks, and things that you don't realize are your ego getting in the way could be some of the things that are holding you back from success right now. And where I really want to jump off from to talk about these three sales tips, let's call them or sales secrets, come from a friend of mine in the industry, Guffy Wright. Guffy, if you're tuning in, man, it's a big shout out to you. If you haven't met the man, go check him out on LinkedIn. He is a commercial insurance. advisor with the Mahoney Group, doing some amazing things in the industry. Just wrote a book called Attach High, which I highly recommend you go out and get today. It's an awesome sales book. And in that book, he talks about his key framework, V3. And V3 stands for the following: value, vulnerability, and validation. Now, how I'm going to apply them in this episode are a bit different than how he applies them in the book, but I'm gonna use that framework to help you really level up your sales right now. Now, what made this, his book and, and his framework really hit home for me is I just recently, recently spoke at an Assurics Global event and I got the chance to speak right before Guffy. So I went first, Guffy went second. I talked about mastering the 4 pillars of the modern-day insurance sales cycle so you can open doors with more qualified prospects. And then he came behind me and talked about, okay, now you got the appointment booked. How do you attach high? How do you use the V3 framework to make you the obvious choice? So it was a really good one-two punch. And so what I want to do is use value, vulnerability, and validation to talk about how you can elevate your sales next year. So let's just jump right in and talk about pillar number 1, value. You know, when I was getting ready for these weeks of travel that I knew I was going to have, one thing that was stressing me out is a lot of these presentations I've been giving over the last 5 or 6 weeks are not the same presentation. You know, normally when I go do a workshop or I do a keynote talk, it's often the same talk or same workshop on repeat. So I don't really have to prep a whole lot because it's— I want to say it's second nature now, but I've done it so much it just rolls off my tongue. However, these past 5, 6 weeks, I've embarked on new presentations, twists to my existing workshops, and it's really like stressed me out because I knew I had to prepare. I knew I had to practice. But in the midst of all this practice, I realized that At the end of the day, my job is to bring this room, whatever this room is, value. And one of the things I've learned over time with value is if you're willing to let go of your ego and know that your only job when you're teaching, whether it's a workshop, a keynote talk, or in your case, it might be a discovery meeting, your only job in teaching is to deliver value to that prospect. And that is— all that does is require you to serve. If you go into a conversation with a prospect, a keynote talk, with the attitude that I am here to serve, it takes away a lot of that pressure or stress to feel like you have to be perfect. And I know I sure felt that as I'm getting these new talks ready, that feeling of, man, I better make sure I deliver value. I better be spot on with what I say. But at the end of the day, your only job is to serve. And so I want to talk about that and how it relates to how you are delivering value to your prospects. My first question is, what are you doing to deliver value to your prospects on a daily basis? For most producers, there's no value being exchanged between you and the prospect because you're spending all your time Calling suspects who don't know you. You're picking up the phone and you're making a bunch of calls. You're sending emails to try to book appointments. Some of you might be even dropping in to try to book appointments, right? But outside of your actual activity where you're asking for appointments, you're doing nothing to deliver value to those prospects. And one of the reasons you don't want to deliver value is your ego is getting in the way. If I said, hey, what would it look like if you put out content on LinkedIn every day that was extremely valuable to your prospects. The first thought that comes into your head is, what will people think? Will people judge me? How will my content compare to somebody else's? And that's your ego getting in the way. But if you get rid of that mindset and you just understand your job is to serve your prospects in whatever fashion that means, hopefully that gives you more permission to start delivering more value. You see, it's Never been easier to deliver value to a prospect frequently as it is right now. The reason I've been able to scale Complete Game Consulting is because we put out so much value on a daily basis, from LinkedIn to YouTube to emails to webinars to podcasts to speaking, that it actually makes asking for appointments a hell of a lot easier. I feel like I've earned the right to ask for appointments, but it also allows us to book calls with prospects who already trust us in a way. In fact, it allows us to book calls with prospects who've already kind of hired us in their head before they ever jump on a call. Makes sales a lot easier, makes us easier, easier to qualify or disqualify prospects. But if you're not delivering any value at all, and all you do is pick up the phone or send an email and ask for an appointment without value, One, that is getting harder every day. We have a client right now that works for a large national firm who meticulously tracks their cold calling statistics. Out of every phone call, every 100 phone calls, 2.5 people pick up. Pick up, not answer. Pick up, not, not book appointments. Pick up. 2.5 out of 100. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're going to say, Andy, that's BS. Last week I made 20 calls. I got 8 people on the phone and I booked 3 appointments. Yeah. You did that on one day. I remember home run hitters, baseball players in the major leagues who never hit home runs, hit 3 on one day, and then they never hit one again. You had an amazing one day of cold calling, but now extend that over months or years. It's hard sending emails. They don't get replied anymore, right? Cold prospecting is harder than it's ever been. Now, I'm not telling you to stop doing that. It's part of the prospecting equation. But I am asking you to deliver more value. You have to start thinking of yourself like the news channel. The news station does 2 things very well. They share stories. Number one, they show up every day. Number 2, they share stories and timely, relevant information. So I'm going to ask you to do the same. Are you showing up every day and delivering value to your prospects? And how you do it? Share stories, case studies. Show how you help your clients, and 2, share timely, relevant, useful information, information you think would be valuable to your prospects. Now you get to choose how you distribute that message. Are you going to do that on a social media platform like LinkedIn? Are you going to do that in an email? Are you going to do that through webinars and live trainings? Or heck, maybe you start your own podcast. I don't care what you do. You got to start bringing value every single day. But to do it, You got to let go of the ego. Stop worrying about what others are going to say and just show up and serve. That's value. Pillar number 1, value. Hey, hey, Andy Neary here. I want to take a minute and make a quick and exciting announcement. I am hosting our next one-of-one sales workshop on Thursday, October 29th. You are not going to want to miss this. Plus, seats are limited, so you can't wait. We are deep within a trust recession right now. It is hard to build trust and credibility with buyers. It's even harder to stand out in a crowded market. So you need a message that helps you grab attention from the right prospects. And that's exactly what you're going to learn in this 2-hour workshop. I'm going to walk you through 2 of our most effective exercises so you can uncover your personal brand and the perfect prospects for you, and then blend the 2 into a sales message only you can take to the market. Imagine walking out of this workshop with a sales message you feel confident in, assets for your LinkedIn profile, your LinkedIn content, an elevator pitch. Heck, Assets for your website. That is what we're going to cover in this one-of-one sales workshop, but seats are limited. So whether you're looking to make 2026 a strong finish or you're ready to ramp up for an amazing 2027, this is a workshop you're not going to want to miss. So if you're interested, here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to LinkedIn where if we're not connected, number one, connect to me, but two, then send me a DM and say, hey, I want to know more about this October one-on-one sales workshop, and we'll get a call on the calendar to see if it's a fit for you. All right, let's get back to the show. Takeaway number 2, pillar number 2, vulnerability. This is something the insurance industry struggles with because if there's one thing that requires you to park your ego, it's being vulnerable. And there's a lot of people in this industry that do not know how to do this. And I know what you're thinking, Andy. I can't show any sign of weakness to my prospects because if I do, there's no chance they'll ever hire me. And I couldn't tell you that's farther from the truth. If you want to win more business today, you got to be more human. Your prospects are not expecting you to be perfect. Your prospects are expecting you to be a human that is just like. Them who has failures and fallibilities. Is that even a word? So if you want to scale your sales, you've got to learn how to become more vulnerable. And I think one of the best ways to be vulnerable is to just be open, honest, and transparent. But it does require you to park the ego. When you're meeting with prospects, you don't have to come in with the perfect game plan. When you're proposing in a finalist presentation, the slides don't have to be perfect. Your words don't have to be perfect. You just need to be open, honest, and transparent. You know, one of the things I think that has helped me sell a lot of insurance towards the end of my career and sell a lot of coaching and consulting at Complete Game Consulting is when we jump on sales calls, I'm very vulnerable. I'm willing to admit what we do well and what we don't. I remember when I was selling insurance, looking at the prospect in the face and saying, listen, here's 3 things I already know about you. You have insurance, you have a broker, and you're probably happy with them. That was just me being open and honest. And it broke down the walls of defense the prospect typically had when they came into the meeting. Did I have the biggest team in the insurance industry? Not by a mile. Did I have the best strategies and the best client service model in the industry? Not by a mile. But the more honest I was with the prospect about where we could help them and where we couldn't, When I was more honest about what kind of prospect is a good fit for us and what kind isn't, the more trust I earned. Did it mean I won every piece of business? Not at all. And when I look at the elite producers today, the best, the Guffeys of the world, they're vulnerable. They're willing to admit their mistakes. They're willing to admit that big client that they lost a year ago and why they lost it. Because at the end of the day, we're all human, just having a human experience. And one of the number one things every buyer is looking for right now is relatability. I learned this lesson on the speaking stage a few years ago. I've been keynote speaking since 2016, 2017, and I often use my pro baseball background as a way to kick off keynote talks. And when I started my insurance career, I thought I had to be perfect on stage. So I would talk about the baseball stories, talk about, you know, what it was like to play high school, then college, then Sign a free agent contract and play professional baseball and how cool that was. I'd share funny stories. And at the end of those keynote talks, I'd have people come up saying, hey, that was a great talk, thank you. But I could tell it really wasn't impacting them the way I thought it would. In fact, my ego got in the way and was almost upset they didn't come and give me hugs and, and tell me how amazing that talk was. And then in one particular talk, I made a decision. I said, you know what? I still remember this. This was the Nebraska SHRM Conference. I think it was 2018. I was working for an agency on the west side of Omaha, and I was giving a talk at the state SHRM Conference in Nebraska. And I decided to flip the script on my baseball story. And instead of just sharing the story of how I elevated to pro baseball, I actually spent the majority of that story talking about how I failed in pro baseball. I got totally vulnerable. And at the end of that talk, for the first time in my short public speaking career, I had a couple attendees come up and give me a hug. And it was a weird experience. And when I had a chance to reflect on it, I realized, huh, Yeah. I realized what just happened. When I decided to park the ego and get a bit vulnerable, I became more relatable, became more human to these people. What I learned in that talk was what I just shared is a story of my failure that happened to tie to pro baseball. But for everybody in that room, It tied them to their own version of failure. And now I was just like them. So vulnerability. You wanna grow your sales? Get more vulnerable. Stop trying to be perfect. Stop telling your prospects you can do everything. Stop hiding and not talking about things you may not be great at or things you may not know like you should. And just start getting more vulnerable. Be open, be honest, be transparent, be human. After all, that's what your buyers are looking for. This episode is brought to you by True Captive 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 Captive's 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 truecaptive.com and discover a smarter way to manage healthcare. That is truecaptive.com. Pillar number 3, takeaway number 3, validate. If I were to share one sales tip that I think has helped me sell more over the past 5 to 6 years than any other sales tip I've been given or I could give you, It is this: it is the ability to look at a prospect in the face when you're trying to earn their business, and having the ability to tell them if they are going to be a fit for you or if they're not. Your job in that moment is to help them make the right decision, and sometimes. That decision, the right decision, is not hiring you. And when I look at some of the elite producers we get a chance to work with today, they have an amazing ability to do that. Why? Because they're not desperately trying to win a piece of business. They don't need a win to make them feel good. They go into all of their sales opportunities with the confidence. Knowing they can help people, but they don't need every win they go after, which gives them that ability to park the ego. See, the ego wants you to win every piece of the business. The ego says you need to do whatever you have to do to win the business. Validating means you are validated to yourself. Therefore, you don't. Have to go after every win with desperation. And if you conclude with a prospect your strategy isn't the right one for them right now, or you're not a good fit, or vice versa, the ability to look them in the eye and honestly share that will take you farther than anything else. Why? Because you already validated to yourself. You can look in the mirror and you're confident that you're successful. You're confident you don't need that win, and all you want to do is help that buyer make the right decision. Guffy shared a story in his talk he delivered after me that I want to share with you because it really, really hit home for me to talk about the validation to prove his final V of his 3V3 framework, he talked about a producer within his agency, the Mahoney Group, who had gone out to a finalist meeting and was walking through where the prospect currently was at with their commercial insurance, the strategy this producer had put on the table. I'm sure he had a quote or 2 maybe from different markets, but at the end of the day, when this producer looked at the prospect's current situation, the relationship with their broker, and what he had on the table, he concluded that their best decision right now was to stay exactly where they were at, even though it meant he was not going to win the business. And that's what he shared. And I know in that moment he earned a ton of credibility And probably trust with that prospect. But something interesting happened after that meeting. I think Guffy said it was a few weeks after that when he walked away essentially because he knew where they were was the place they needed to be right now. That prospect called him back, and in the time frame between his presentation and the call, the current broker had. Messed something up. There was some friction between the prospect and their incumbent, and the prospect called back and told the producer, this is what happened, and basically gave the producer another shot because the producer gave him the best advice for his situation, and it ultimately earned him the agent of record letter. Had that producer gone into that presentation to doing anything he could to win the business, telling the prospect the best thing to do is to hire him no matter what, even if it wasn't the best strategy, he would not have gotten that callback. But because that producer was validated in his own mind and was okay helping that prospect make the right decision, even though it wasn't hiring him, he ultimately won the business. And that's the final takeaway I wanna share with you is you have to remember your number one job in sales is to help prospects make the right decision. It is not to win business. So I'm gonna ask you, as you fill your pipeline with opportunities here between now and the end of the year and on into 2027, you gotta let go of the ego that wants you so desperately to win every opportunity and just go into every opportunity ready to serve, ready to be human and be vulnerable, knowing you don't have to be perfect, and just help your prospects make the right decision, even if it means not hiring you. When I look at how we've applied those 3 to our sales at Complete Game Consulting, That is probably the one thing that has given us more satisfaction than anything else. When I jump on a call with a nice agency opportunity and I can look them in the face and say, listen, whether you hire us or not, here's what I would do if I were you. That statement alone probably wins us more business than anything else. Telling a prospect not to buy a certain product of ours. Doesn't win revenue right now, but it sure wins credibility and it sure wins trust. And I know without a doubt, months later, that same prospect's going to come back. See, this is the key to sales. In insurance, we've all been taught that all you got to do is pound the phones and the pavement. You better show up well-dressed, perfect, and have the right script to win. And by all means, do whatever you get— you can to win the business and get the check. And in 2026, that might be the worst advice you could give a producer because it doesn't win anymore. World has changed. The game of sales has changed, and how a producer shows up has changed. And the most important thing you must do as a producer is let go of the ego so you can bring more value every single day to your buyers so you can get the attention of your ideal buyers. 2, be vulnerable when you get the chance to meet with your buyers. Be human, be relatable. And then at the end of the day, validate and help them make the right decision, even if it doesn't mean they should hire you right now. Those 3 things will help you build more trust and credibility at a time we are deep within a trust recession. I know it has changed my career both as a producer and now the founder and CEO of Complete Game Consulting, and I know what it's done for some of the best producers we've had a chance to work with who are elevating their books well into the 7 figures. These are 3 tips you might want to take in on the end of the year and help you launch an amazing record-breaking 2027. Be good.