The Secret Formula Behind An Effective Marketing Campaign

Right. So, Stacy G. Who else is frozen? Shannon Thomas. I don't want to see a image of Rose Street's front door.

I am walking out. You don't. All right, all right, all right. Like Blair Witch Project. Nice. Okay, guys, here's what I want to talk about. Today you saw the topic was secret formula behind effective marketing. And it's funny, I don't know if anybody's ever read the book Building a story brand, but I'm actually going through certification as we speak. I am doing this webinar on a lunch break, but the certification is a four day certification, which will make me story brand certified, which is really cool. I can use their content, I can use their stuff, and it's going to help take the business to the next level. But I wanted to use this webinar to talk about something that really comes out. It's coming out of the workshop that I'm in. But it's something I see a lot of people fail to do in the insurance industry. So I want to bring it up. And so today my goal is to share. There's three takeaways I want you guys to have today. And I'll make, I'll highlight them when we get to them so you guys can write them down. But at the end, I'm going to share a formula that if you guys just apply this formula to your marketing, to your sales proposals, I promise it'll work. One, it's going to make you look different. Number two, it will make your message so much more effective. And so where I want to start today with marketing is before we get to that formula that, that thing, formula I'm going to share at the end. The first thing I want you guys to remember when it comes to marketing and is you have to do it today. I still, in 2022, I still hear advisors tell me marketing's not important.

And especially since the pandemic, I'm going to be very blunt and say without marketing, you don't have sales.

Unless you have some secret magic cold calling where you need zero marketing. You just pick up the phone, dial 200 dials a day, and you're killing it. Other than that, you need marketing. But even with cold calling, I'd argue what comes out of your mouth is marketing. And so the first takeaway that I want to talk about today with effective marketing in 2022 is we have to tell stories and stop pitching product.

And so what I want you guys to think about, some of you may have attended webinars in the past. I used to do webinars with Lester Morales. And the name of the webinar series was Tell stories. Or what was it? Tell stories, Stop pitching product.

Our job today is to tell stories we can draw our prospects into.

And so when you hear a lot of advisors today, what do they talk about when they go out? They talk about our agency offers medical insurance, dental insurance, vision, voluntary, nobody cares. When I go to websites, I don't want to hear about the products you sell.

I want to see a story. And so the first thing I want you to think about with effective marketing today is it starts with telling stories. And that's the formula I'm going to share at the end. How can you tell better stories? In fact, I urge everybody, if you haven't read the book yet, go read or listen to the book Building a story brand.

Because it is, hands down the best book you'll ever read on how to tell effective stories. It's the formula every single movie in Hollywood follows. So step number one is think of how can I tell stories versus just going out, especially in the proposal stage and pitching product.

The product is part of the solution, but it cannot be the main theme of the story. And I'll get into that here in a bit. So the first takeaway with effective marketing in our business today is tell stories, don't pitch products.

Which leads to the second step. First two steps are pretty quick. Second step is now that you know, okay, I need to be telling stories.

What I want everybody on this call to remember is you are not the hero of the story.

You'll hear a lot of agencies talk about how they save their clients X number of dollars, how they do this and how they do that. They don't. You cannot make yourself the hero of the story.

Here's a great way, you know, an agency is making itself the hero. Go to their website.

And if most of the website is the agency talking about itself, they're making themselves the hero.

When I go to an agency's website, what I want to see is I want to see a story told that speaks to me, the prospect.

So I want you guys to remember when you go out and you in your marketing, whether it's on social media, in your marketing, collateral, in your emails, whatever it is, do not pit yourself as the hero, especially.

In your sales presentations.

If you think about the sales process today, right, we do such a good job in that first meeting, fact finding, getting to know the prospect, grabbing the details, engaging in good conversation, and then we come back for the proposal and all of a sudden, what Happens is we flip it and we make it all about ourselves. We spend most of the proposal talking about our agency, our resources, our services, our associations we're affiliated with. And what we just did is make the biggest mistake we could make because.

We made it all. We made ourselves the hero. One of the number one things I see strategies I see with the clients I work with today that are winning business from the big competitors is they'll find themselves in a finalist meeting, right? We've all been there. It's you, two or three other agencies, consulting houses that are in the finalist meeting.

And what happens is when we know we are in a finalist meeting, we press and we want to make sure we provide as much information as we can. So we spend all of it talking about ourselves. Because really what we're doing is we're desperate to win that piece of business.

But what my clients are doing right now to win those finalists meeting is they're walking in when everybody else is talking about their capabilities and their resources and all the products they have. They're just telling the prospect story.

They're telling the prospect story from the data they gathered from the prospect. Throughout the fact finding process.

They kept it really simple. They didn't need 50 PowerPoint slides to present, they needed 10.

And so step two is, okay, we need to become better storytellers. We can't make it about us, we got to make it all about the prospect. And that leads to step three, where I'm going to spend the majority of the time. Step three is what is the framework to tell a better story? This is where I want you taking notes because if you guys get this down pat, it'll affect your marketing, it'll affect your content on LinkedIn if you're using it, it'll affect your emails, it'll affect again, it can become your cold calling script.

Some of you may have heard me talk about this framework. It literally, here's what I urge everybody to do, to walk out from walking out of this webinar is every time you have a proposal coming up, before you put PowerPoints together, before you put numbers on paper, if you're showing numbers.

I want you to sit down and lay out right out this framework.

The first part of telling a story is every story has a hero, a specific person. In this case, it's your prospect.

So you want to know, okay, who's the hero of the story? Whoever your prospect is, that's who you're going to write out.

The second part of the framework is the hero wants something. They have A goal. So once you've done your fact finding from the first meeting, because again, if you've been on past webinars, who can repeat the four questions you should ask in every intro meeting? Wade, I'm looking at you. You've been a good attendee. What are the four questions you should ask in every intro meeting? I'll give you the first one. I usually ask them, what. What's their biggest goal that they are looking to attend? Perfect. What's your number one goal right now? Anybody know what question two is?

Question two is, oh, who asked? Who said, why haven't you gotten it? Not yet. The question is, if you know their goal, the next question is, what would it mean if you got there? What would it mean if you hit your goal? What does that mean to your company?

The third question is, okay, what's your problem? Why can't you get there? What's the challenge and how. And then the fourth question is, how this. How is the challenge affecting you guys right now?

Because now when you sit down and do the frame the story framework for the proposal, again, this can affect your marketing, social media, everything.

The thing you got to write out is, what is it my prospect wants? And they should have told you that in the first meeting because they told you what their goal is.

The next thing you need to write out is, okay, what's their problem?

There's something keeping them from the goal. And again, if you asked it in the intro meeting, they already gave the answer.

Now, there's really two main types of problems I want everybody to think about. There's the physical external problem. That's the one they shared with you. Our health insurance costs are out of control. We're trying to hire a coo, and it's really hard to find good people. Whatever that external problem is, they shared with you. That's the physical problem. That's the external problem. But equally important, there's an internal problem, and that is how is the physical external problem making them feel? So if we use the example of rising health insurance cost, is the external problem? Well, internally, they're probably pissed off, frustrated, they feel hopeless, helpless. All those emotions they feel when they look at their cost going up.

So now we got a hero. We have. You have your prospect who wants something, but they can't get it because of a prop.

Now, this is where you come in, because the next part of the story is the story has a guide. There's a guide who's going to come in and help save the day.

So literally, as simple and basic as it sounds, guys, I would literally write down, who's the guide? Me, My agency.

Then you have to think about this, because you're the guide. What makes you credible to be the guide?

You work with hundreds of employers. You've helped companies save hundreds of thousands of dollars. What makes you credible to do what you do? And I know all of you have it. You're all good at what you do.

Just saying, you know, for the past 20 years, we've been working with hundreds of companies to do this. That right there is credibility.

But you got to think about, okay, we are the guide.

What makes us credible. But here's the key, guys. When you're telling the story, you also have to be empathetic. You have to show empathy. I see a lot of advisors. I was guilty of this in the past as well. A lot of advisors actually make their prospects feel stupid.

Anybody ever been guilty of that? You kind of tell them you're making really stupid decisions right now. The way you build your health plan and why would you be fully insured? We think we're doing our job, but we're actually kind of making our prospect feel stupid. You're not showing empathy.

But you got to show empathy, saying, listen, we work with a ton of companies who feel the same struggle that you watch your rates go up every year. And you act like, is there anything else we can do? We get it. We understand that is empathy.

We understand making changes to your health plan, it's not easy.

So as the guide of the story, you got to let them know you're credible, but you also have to show empathy.

Now, this is where your plan comes in. What is the solution that you're going to share with the prospect that's going to help them save the day?

And for those that attended the webinar last week.

I talked about four pillars every agency should have in their sales system. And one of them was the Playbook. What is your secret sauce that helps companies win? What's the playbook?

That's your plan? That's your solution.

So now if you sat down and wrote this, who's. Who's the hero? My prospect. What. What is it they want? What's the problem keeping them from it? How's it making them feel?

Therefore, I'm the guide? What is it I. What. What makes me the credible guide? And what is my plan? What is my solution.

That'S going to either help them win or. I shouldn't say either. That is going to help them win, but also help them avoid their current failure.

Because as Powerful as you showing them how they're going to win with your solution.

You also have to show them the failure they're avoiding.

By buying your solution.

Because, remember, more people buy on avoiding failure than they do on achieving success.

So when you sit down, like I said, thinking about how you're going to market your message.

How you're going to put a piece of content out on social media.

How are you going to put together your proposal for a prospect? If you sit down and lay out, who's the hero, what's their goal, what's their problem.

Who'S the guide, what's our credibility? How can we show empathy?

What is the solution, what is the strategy? And if they implement our solution, what is success look like.

And what is the failure we're helping them avoid?

And if you take that message.

And you apply it to your marketing and your sales proposals, guys.

Your marking is going to get more prospects to raise their hand.

And your proposals are going to get more people to say yes.

Because what you've just done with that storytelling framework is you have told a story, their story, which allows themselves to jump in the story. And when they can jump in the story.

And see themselves in it, it's going to make it easier for them to connect with your solution.

And see how your solution is going to help them win.

Does that make sense?

It works. Who said it works? Wade?

Yeah, it works.

Yes, it works, guys. And I know if he. Honestly, if you really think about this, it doesn't sound like rocket science, but for whatever reason, we've all been there. When we get in that sales opportunity, we don't take the time to slow down and just tell their story. And so if I were you, after you've done this exercise, let's imagine you have a sales proposal, you have a finalist proposal next week. If you sat down and wrote all that entire framework out.

And then you actually had to give a presentation, whether it's in hard copy or it's in PowerPoint.

I would literally design the slides around that framework.

If you guys saw the proposals I used to use.

You'D see how embarrassingly simple they are.

Because your only job in the proposals, to tell that story. So use your slides to let you tell that story.

And remember, as the guide, that is your chance to show the credibility.

Whether that's, you know, our agency does have a lot of resources, we do have a lot of capabilities, or I work, you know, we have 100 different offices around the country, whatever that is, that establishes your credibility when you display, when you get into your solution. Yes, you can share that, but if you start with their story first.

It'Ll make it so much easier to sell your solution.

And if you apply that story to your marketing. So let me, let me go through a couple examples. Cold calling. And I'm actually going to rip this really, really quick for you guys. If you are a master cold caller, you could probably ignore me for a second. But for the rest of you, here's where it drives your cold calling.

I sucked at it. So when I would write out this story, here's where it would help me. I would literally go, okay, I've got 25 CFOs I'm gonna call today. I'll probably get ahold of two or three of them. But I know with the two or three that I actually get to talk to, here's what I'm gonna say. Hey, Lou, it's Andy. I work with CFOs in the Idaho market who are really trying to build a better health plan for less money. But they've been extremely frustrated because every year they watch their costs going up. And I'd love to sit down and show you how I'm using the Andy Neary program. I'm making up a name that's helping your peers not only increase the value of their benefits, but reduce the cost of the benefits. Would love to see if you got 15 minutes.

What I just did is told the story.

And that allowed me to make cold calling easier for me because otherwise I sat there, I'm like, what am I going to say.

Now? Emails. All I'm going to do in an email is tell the same stories. Hey Lou, it's Andy. Would love to see if I can grab 15 minutes. I've been working with CFOs in the Boise market who want to build better health plan for less money, but have been frustrated because costs going up every year. Would love to show you our ABC program that's helping your peers control their cost and actually improve the benefits that they provide their employees.

You guys see how this is driving the other aspects of your marketing and prospecting?

Anybody not following or scratching their head like, okay, dude, I don't get this.

Cool, guys. If you get this doubt.

It will become your secret sauce in prospecting because if you apply it to your cold calling, you apply it to your emails, you apply it. What should I post on LinkedIn? Do a video, Tell the story. Tell parts of the story.

About a webinar. You guys host webinars at all for your prospects. Now, once in a while, you're going to have subject matter experts on, right. That are going to talk about a specific topic. So let's say I'm going to pick on somebody. Michael, you got a webinar coming up where you've got an attorney talking about compliance.

What I would do if I knew I was hosting a webinar coming up, even though the topic is about compliance and the person who's going to be the highlight is not me, it's a subject matter expert that I'm interviewing or whatever. If I'm Michael, I'm going, what's the story here? Who's going to be on the webinar? The hero are the attendees? What is they want as it pertains to this subject? What's their problem?

And how is this subject matter expert going to help them give the solution today? And if I'm Michael kicking that webinar off, I'm going to tell that story.

Instead of what most people do is say, hey guys, thanks for being on the webinar today. Michael Godwin about to introduce Jim Smith from ABC Law Firm. And we don't really ever tell that story. The prospects aren't connecting with why am I here?

You tell the story, it becomes magic.

So I'll say it once more. There's a hero who wants something, who has a goal but has a problem that's keeping them from it. That's affecting them both externally as the physical problem, but internally emotion with emotions. And you're the guide who has both the empathy and the credibility because you've got a solution that's going to help them win and avoid failure. Lay out those things with every presentation, guys, and your success results will go up. We got five minutes left. Questions.

Andy? Brian Cheddar. Hey, Brian, thanks for talking about the prospecting and the calls, because I was always, I was kind of caught up in is how do I get a story short enough? You know, you got literally five seconds and they've got like two seconds to understand what you're talking about. They're not going to spend a whole lot of brain power processing what you say. So you got to jump into a category and tell a story all at the same time.

That's absolutely it. And here's the thing, guys, when you lay out your solution again, if you've been on previous webinars, I've talked about this, I believe you should have a solution that you can give a brand name to. Give it a name. Because when you send emails or you make cold calls, you can be like, hey, I've been helping other CFOs with a program we use called Empower Health or whatever you call it. Love to show you how it works.

Just that giving that name makes the prospect go, wonder what that is.

Gotta be quick, Gotta be quick.

This is called a what? This is. This is what starts to be called or known as a one liner, guys. You get this one liner down, that takes only 30 seconds, 45 seconds, not even 30 seconds to say, you'll catch people's attention because the rest of your competition is saying, well, we're an insurance agency that offers medical, dental, vision, and we, we have the best customer service on the planet.

Mm.

What else? What are the questions you got, guys?

Go, Wade.

Andy, what do you do if you don't have some real good stories based on the circumstances that you're talking to the employer? I take other people's stories. Then, you know, some of the people I work with. What do you do, for example, with our audience here, but they look at you and they say, andy, that's good, but I don't have necessarily a good story to tell. Yeah, you do. If you don't have a good story. Guys, great question, Wade. Sit down and take the time and go, who would be my ideal prospect? Which, by the way, the answer is, who's your favorite client today? Like, who is the one client that lets do the best work you got that you have? Well, what was their goal, what was their problem and how did you help solve it? Tell that story over and over. Because if you tell that story in your intro meetings, especially because right in an intro meeting, you may not know the prospect story yet, but if you tell the story of your ideal prospect, that favorite client of yours, what it's going to do is it's going to help those prospects either say, yeah, that's us, or, no, that's not us. And. And you want the one saying, yeah, that's us.

So if you don't know where to start, sit down and think about your ideal client today. And what would be the ideal client's goal? What would be the problem keeping them from it? How's it making them feel? What is your plan that's going to help them succeed and avoid failure? Tell that story over and over.

I'll make one mention. Guys, you probably have seen it. I've talked about it. Last couple calls. My next broker branding academy, starting May 4th. So we're still a ways off. I actually put in the if you go to the chat box, I said, if you want to know more, text the word academy you see the phone number right there? Text Academy to that number. I'll get in touch with you, but it starts May 4th. And what I'm doing for people who sign up now, it just takes 500 bucks to lock in a seat. You get two extra strategy sessions with me, 60 minutes each at no cost. If you want more information on the academy, text that word academy to that number. And I'm happy to connect with you, but I'm telling you guys, this is the game changer. If you just. When you have proposals coming up, when you have meetings with prospects, take the time and sit down and write out this framework, and it'll be like magic for you.

What? Any last questions before I let you go?

Going once, going twice. Everybody feel comfortable? They can sit down and do this.

Sweet.

It's going to take a while.

You'll screw up at first, but do it over. And it's reps, guys. It's like being an athlete, right? It's reps. Do reps and think. Actually look at some of your current clients and write out the framework. Do the story framework on current clients because it's going to help you get better at it.

Like I said, it's going to help make your proposals a lot easier, too. So with that being said, I'm going to let everybody go. Hit me up if you got any questions. Otherwise, go tell stories. Become master storytellers.

Thanks. All right, guys, have a great afternoon.