Skillset. Toolset. Mindset. The 3 Pillars For Q4 Success!

So here's what I want to do today, guys. I thought about running this webinar today because I was on a panel last week.

I don't know if anybody's been participating in this VB Advantage week that they've been running. Forget the gentleman. Walt Pegurski has been running this thing. So I was on a panel about mindset and the topic was skill set, tool set or mindset, which one's most important? And.

I had very different thoughts than the others on the panel. And so I thought, you know what, it's a good idea to run a webinar on this because what I want to talk about today, here's what I want to share with you guys. I want to share one skillset tip leading into the Q4 season, one tool set tip, and a couple mindset tips leading into Q4. So what I want to do with this webinar is set you guys up for a successful Q4. And as I always say, I'll leave a few minutes at the end for questions. If you guys have any questions, raise your hand. As you guys know, there is actually a raise your hand feature. If you're not familiar with that on the zoom, just hit reactions and you'll see the raise your hand. But I'm just going to go through these tips. I was thinking about these. These are things I shared on the panel and so I wanted to share them with you guys. So what's the date today? 21st. Okay. Yes. Anybody already starting to feel Q4 coming?

It's hard to believe. Like we feel like nowadays we're like in this one huge cycle of Q4.

Once you think you've gotten over it, you're already starting to think about it. And so it's like, what's the old famous story about painting the Golden Gate Bridge? Right? The guy who paints the Golden Gate Bridge, when he hits the other side, he's got to start painting it all over again. It's kind of how Q4 season is. So let's talk about skillset, because here's the deal. When I look at our industry, I think there's been this age old belief that skills and tools are the most important thing.

Skill having the ability, right? Tools are what are my weapons in my toolbox. And there really hasn't been a whole lot of emphasis placed on mindset. And I watch advisors week after week after week who have all the skill in the world, all the tools at their disposal, not win. And it's because of this.

And so what I want to talk about Today is, yeah, you need skill, you need tools. But I'm going to share a couple tips on how you can leverage the right skills and the right tools. But most importantly, how can you go into Q4 with this in the right place? And so let's talk about skillset. When I think of skillset in our industry, you know, there are plenty of skills that can be learned, right? When you get in the industry, you have to understand what the heck a health insurance plan is. And then eventually over time, maybe you learn about self funding and you learn about these strategies and direct primary care reference based pricing, how to open run an effective open enrollment season, anything. Those are all skills, right? But here's the most important skill I want you to focus on going into the fourth quarter. I want you to take the skills you already have.

And communicate them better.

So the skill I want you to leverage is communicating better, become a better storyteller. A couple of you on this call are actual clients of ours. So you get this because we work on this. But the point I'm making is, here's an example.

Every fourth quarter.

I will work with agencies who really want to be different, they want to do different things. Maybe it's self funding, level funding, you know, try to move clients into different types of programs, but every fourth quarter it's a failure. Well, our clients didn't want to do it. And we'll dig deeper and I'll say, okay, how did you present it? You know, you just came out and said they're not interested. And here's the funny thing, nine out of ten times they literally asked their clients, hey, so do you want to look at self funding this year?

And I said, there's your problem. What do you think a client or prospect's gonna say? If you say you wanna look at self funding this year, all they hear is product. No. So you gotta communicate the knowledge. Because if it's knowledge, it's self funding, you gotta be able to communicate the knowledge better. So my tip for you is I want you to focus heavily on communicating what it is. You know, what do I mean by that? Mike, you're on a call. You guys represent a level funded plan, right?

Let's correct, let's imagine there are advisors on here who sell level funding plans to small mid sized companies. Guys, you got to sell the story of why level funding is important. That company that's looking at rising health insurance costs right now, and they're frustrated, they're pissed off, and they just don't know. Let's imagine you're a small group, you don't know if you have any options. You've never been told you have options. Every year you get the stupid spreadsheet and say, pick. Well, wow. This thing called level funding is now a potential solution because it gives you options, gives you flexibility, but it gives you the ability to control your cost, which is your problem in the first place. Well, all that I just did there very quickly is put level funding in as part of that story. Right, but it was a part of the prospect's overall story.

So my challenge to you is whatever this knowledge is you want to convey.

Make it a part of the story, don't make it the story.

Again, you ask a prospect or a client, they want to talk about level funding, self funding, prescription cost savings, direct primary care, reference, brace, they're all going to say no.

But you got to find out what their goals and their challenges are and then pit the knowledge, the solution, into that story. Does that make sense? So that's tip number one.

Now let's talk about tool set. Because here's the thing that's very, very different today in the health insurance industry. That even compared to 10 years ago. Everybody on this call, and we had about 20 some more actually sign up again, the people just waiting for the recording, if that's you, I'm calling you out.

We all have access to the same tools, right? Everybody in the industry, if you're a producer, Mike, you represent a solution, so you offer one solution. But everybody else who's an advisor, you have access to the same. Everybody else in the industry, for the most part, yes, there's some exclusivity things. I get it. But most, by and large, we all have access to the same tools. So here's the challenge you have.

That makes it hard to differentiate because your competitors, whether they talk about it or not, is a different story. We all have access to the same tools. That wasn't the same. That wasn't the case 10 years ago.

So here's what you have to focus on with your tool set. I want you guys to think about not the products you sell.

I want you to think about the process you sell.

So if there's one tip I'm going to give you for the fourth quarter on tool set.

It is start selling a process. Stop selling a bunch of products.

So I challenge everybody on the call to sit down and go, okay, what is our process? What do we do to help? Our help take an unhappy prospect and turn it into a happy client.

Maybe for some of you, again, it is level or Self funding with added cost containment solutions. Maybe it's I really leverage benefits technology or it's yeah, I work with small businesses and they're trying to automate and make this whole benefit thing more, more simplified. Whatever it is.

Think about that entirety as a process.

What three or four steps are included in your process.

That turn an unhappy prospect into a happy client. And I challenge you to name it, brand it. And when you go out in the fourth quarter and you try to win business.

You'Re selling that process. Now Mike, I'm going to call you out, single you out for a second again because you represent an actual product. You already got a name for your product or your process. You don't have to come up with a new one. But advisors on the call who are selling a process, name that puppy. Because here's what's interesting guys, here's where you're going to realize the unlock with your tool set. So can we agree that what you sell different clients is different? Not every client buys the same thing. Right.

But if you've got a process locked in, the one thing that never changes is your process.

You could go meet a prospect today that has the problem of our health insurance costs are out of control. We need to figure it out because it's killing our expenses and our profit margin. Your process can help. Tomorrow you meet with a group their problems. Recruiting.

Can'T find good people. We need something, we need some kind of differentiator to go find people. Cool. Different goal, different problem. Your process can help. So when you think about your process, it is the one thing in your communication that never changes. The goals, the challenges, the prospect can change. Your process doesn't. When you get that locked in, that is a tool set.

That is going to give you an advantage over the competition. Because what you sell to each prospect can be different or client. Today it might be self funding, tomorrow it might be benefits technology and then third day it might be reference based pricing. But it's the process that never changes. So figure out what your process is.

Now for the mindset.

If you think about the skill set, number one, become a better communicator of your knowledge. Hands down what you have to do if you want to win more. Number two, know that you no longer have a competitive advantage with tools because everybody has access to the same things. But develop a bulletproof process and that is what's going to give you the differentiator you need. Now the mindset. I actually wrote three down. You'll notice I've got three tips here, not one because this is how important I think mindset is going in. Because I look at myself, guys, a decade ago, and I had all the skill, I had all the tools, but I sucked at selling because my mind sucked.

So number one, going into the fourth quarter, and this applies to anybody, whether you're a producer or not, gotta be a time management ninja, okay? The number one thing I challenge everybody to do going into the fourth quarter is if you know time management is a challenge for you, fix it. And here's what I challenge you to do every single week. Whether it is the Friday before the week, or Saturday or Sunday, not Monday morning, but before Monday morning starts, you need to know exactly what your game plan is for each week.

And if you play multiple roles in your business that the most common in our industry is you're a producer, maybe you still manage some of the accounts you work with and maybe you have some management duties with the agency or company or you own the company, right? Those are three different, very distinctive roles. You have got to look at your weeks and block the time to be different, the different hats. Because if you go into every week, especially the fourth quarter, thinking that 8:00am through 5:00pm, I play all three, all the time, you will never be effective. Because when you're trying to do all three at once, here's what you naturally do. You do what's easiest.

And the easiest thing for us to do is what we know. And especially in the fourth quarter, the easiest thing to do is sit at your desk and just help clients.

And all of a sudden, before you know it, you're renewing your business, which is important, don't get me wrong, but you haven't even thought about selling anything and it's now November 20th and you're like, holy crap, this quarter, this year is pretty much over.

So time block and block the specific areas of your weeks for certain things. So let me use the example I just gave. If you sell now, if you just sell, that's your only job. This is easy. Let's say you still have to manage some of your clients. You have meetings with your clients, especially renewal meetings, right? And again, maybe you have some management duties with the agency.

I would leverage Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays for producing and account managing.

And during the fourth quarter, here's the tweak I make. In the mornings, I really want to focus on production. A renewal meeting with the client could be called production, because guess what? You renew them, you get paid, right? You stay paid. But then I reserve the afternoons for any follow up with clients.

And by the way, I urge, if you guys are a part of a team, share this with your team. Because I have seen it far too often. Agencies especially go at the fourth quarter with this all hands on deck mentality. And all of a sudden the big clients renewing right now, the one we make $200,000 on. And I want everybody to stop what they're doing to help out.

Can't have that.

So think about how you time block. Like I said, the easy one I point out is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday mornings, great prospecting times, renewal meetings afternoons. Reserve it for the follow up, the account management and then what Monday, Fridays could be that, could be that CEO time, that management time. And again, if you guys have any management duties in the fourth quarter, another time management ninja hack. Quit having so many meetings.

If you need to dial back your meetings, dial them back. If a 30 minute meeting can be done in 10, make it 10. I've been part of far too many sales meetings or marketing meetings with agencies that went an hour because we've always blocked an hour. No, get them done.

Now here's another little time management hack that I didn't even think about going in. But I want to share anybody here involved with renewing business or keeping clients. Okay, leverage the power of the prep and debrief meetings. Here's what I mean by this. Before Amy and I moved out here, I was working for an agency in Wisconsin that had one of the most dialed in account management process I've ever seen. I still talk about it today when I work with clients. And here's something we leveraged a little thing we leverage that was so useful with every client we had, we had at least three team members touching the client. But not all three would go to every meeting. So let's say I'm the only one going to the meeting. What we would do is we made sure that in the calendar we had a prep meeting schedule about a week in advance of the meeting.

Because we needed to know what, what do we need to know about the client? What's top of mind, what's the priority?

And whoever is responsible for putting a proposal together for that meeting needed to know too. So we get together, brainstorm. Now I go perform the meeting and then right after the meeting, and already in the calendar was a debrief meeting. So I'd come back, I'd sit down with the other two team members or more and I'd share everything. We talked about the meeting, all the action steps that came out of it, who's responsible for them. So that if there are three or four different people who have responsibilities now, we can go execute. And I am not trying to manage all of this. Now, they know we go execute. So if you are managing any renewals, leverage the power of prep and debrief. And by the way, even if you're a solopreneur, do it with yourself. Block time to prep. Block time to sit down and debrief it with yourself. What happened? What are the steps? How do I follow up with the client? Don't just get back and then keep going. You gotta wrap up what you talked about. So that's another little time management hack that can be very useful for your teams. Now, the second mindset I want you to think about here is it's going to sound general, but you'll get what I'm trying to say here. Give more than you expect in return. What I mean by that is, if you're prospecting, I want you to lean into sharing, educating the prospect even more than you're comfortable doing.

There is this fear, right, that if I share too much, the client's going to use it against me or the prospect's going to use it against me. The broker, they're going to share it with their broker and then I lose out, right? Guys, I want you to get rid of that thought process. The more you share, the more you educate before you ask for the sale, the greater the odds you get the sale. Buyers want value before they're ever going to buy from you. So what can you do to bring more value?

Maybe it's social media content, webinars, newsletters, podcasts. I don't know what you want to do to get the message out, but figure out a way to teach the living heck out of your prospects. You got to do it hard. This is a short time frame, right? Fourth quarter starts in about, what, a little over two months? So develop a game plan right now to go. Okay, what are we going to do to bring a ton of value? Some of you are already doing it. I know you are.

But the greatest way to fill your pipeline is to give first. Remember, if you just go for the ask all the time, which is meeting. Give me a meeting. Can I have a meeting? Can I have a meeting? Can I have a meeting? And you're not giving anything. It's harder to fill up that pipeline faster.

The last mindset, and this plays off of.

Both one and two, something that I have has driven my advising career for the last eight years. If you are time managing your calendar well and you are bringing a ton of value. You're teaching even more than you're comfortable doing it. You still are going to have little time to get a lot done because it's the fourth quarter.

And this is where you have to leverage the power of exponential awareness. I know if you've been on my webinars, you've heard me talk about this ad nauseum. If you're a client, we have talked about this. Because you are short on time, you have got to do everything you can to get your message out faster and wider than you are today. So I just want you to think of a math formula. If I call a prospect in the fourth quarter, I can only call one at a time. I want you to just use the math formula and go, okay, how do I get one message in front of 10, 25, 50, 100, maybe a 500 people at once and get outside your comfort zone, gang.

Maybe it's getting on social media, LinkedIn a little more. Maybe it's starting a newsletter where you're putting in a video you're teaching and you send out a video of you teaching to your list of prospects. Maybe it's going and trying to find a SHRM event or some event to speak at before the end of the year. Get outside your comfort zone and think about what am I going to do to get my message in front of a lot of people at one time? Because if you're, if you're especially backs against the wall right now and you've got to produce here this fourth quarter. I had an advisor call me last week and just started with a new agency and the agency wants him to sell six accounts by the end of the year. I'm like, dude, you got to get going.

He's not going to do it by just sitting there and picking up the phone.

He has got to go create massive awareness and put the work in to do it. So that's my advice for you on the.

Exponential awareness. With the time blocks you have to prospect.

You have to make the conscientious choice of am I going to try to use this hour to make 50 calls.

Or am I going to use this hour to do things that are going to get my message in front of hundreds?

Yes, you should still pick up the phone, but don't ignore the channels to get your message out in front of a lot of people at once. And here's the best part, guys. I'd rather go down failing trying than failing doing what I've always done, knowing it's not working like it used to.

So.