What Got You HERE Won't Get You THERE [Friday Bullpen Sessions Episode 34]

Hey, hey. It is Friday. You know what that means? It is time for Friday Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary, and this is episode 34. Today we are going to talk about taking your career to the next level. It's something that so many struggle with right now. Having you know you're having success today. And what got you to that first milestone could have been by peer. You could have done it by pure grind and hustle and just putting the hours in. But now you want to take your business, your career to the next level, and you're looking up going, oh, my God, I'm already maxed out on time. How in the world can I take this business to the next level? That's what we're going to talk about today. And speaking of which, next level, I want to introduce you to the Complete Game Mastermind. If you are a health insurance advisor, you're in sales, you're already having a lot of success, but you're looking to take that success to the next level. You've built a book of business worth half a million dollars, maybe even a million dollars, and you're trying to double it. What got you here most likely won't get you there. You need to take your brand and your message to the next level. That's what Complete Game is all about. It is a mastermind designed to help you master the habits and rituals, bring absolute clarity to your brand and your brand message, and then help you craft and execute on a simple yet effective plan to create massive awareness around that brand message. If that sounds like something you're up for, that's something you need. Go check out Complete Game today. I promise you won't be disappointed. You did. All right, back to the episode. Let's talk about taking your career to the next level. This topic popped up in my head the other day when thinking back to conversations I've had in my past, conversations that have been struck up on ESPN SportsCenter, all you have to do is go back a couple years and look at some of those Alabama Crimson Tide football teams, the teams that were just almost unstoppable? And those, those teams, those years coincided with years where at the NFL level, a team like the Cleveland Browns were awful. Remember those years where Cleveland went 1 in 15, oh, and 16? And discussion was always around this topic, could Alabama beat the Cleveland Browns? And there were people who felt it truly was possible that the best college team in football could take on the worst NFL team and win. And my answer to that topic is, are you kidding me? Do you understand the gap between the talent level from the best team in college football to the worst team in the NFL. If the Cleveland Browns, circa what, 2016, 2017, were to take on the Alabama Crimson Tyne from that era, the Browns would wipe them off the field. Because the jump in talent, what it takes to go from the highest peak at college football to the NFL is massive. It's why so many college football players don't make it at all the NFL level. The same holds true in professional baseball. You know, when you look at all the levels to minor league baseball, right, you have rookie ball, single A, double A, triple A, then the big leagues, you can get drafted, you can play in rookie ball and single A on pure raw talent, that grit, that hustle, that grind. But the gap between the top AAA in the big leagues is massive. I can look back at numerous players in the Milwaukee brewers organization that would absolutely rake at the Triple A level. Their statistics were unbelievable. But every time they got called up to the big leagues, they just couldn't perform at the same level. It's because pitching was at a completely different level. If you were a pitcher, the hitters were at a completely different level. And people don't understand how big that gap is, whether it's college football to the NFL, minor league baseball to the big leagues. And what you realize in that moment. And I realized even just playing rookie ball, single A ball at the minor league level, what got you here won't get you there. What made you successful as a baseball player in high school, in college, that skill set won't necessarily make you successful in minor league baseball. The skills in college football that gave you the unbelievable stats, made you a great quarterback, wide receiver, defensive end, won't necessarily equate to massive success at the NFL level. Why? Because it requires a whole different skill set. You have to take your.

Level of skills to a whole new level.

And I talk about that today because when I look at the business landscape, I spent most of my career here in the health insurance industry. And I have plenty of friends, plenty of colleagues I know in the industry that have had massive success. They've grown books of business from nothing to a half a million dollars. A million dollars, close to $2 million in some cases. And they're making a great living. But you know what? They're not satisfied. They're driven. And they want to take that business to the the next level. They wanted to go from a half a million dollars to a million, from a million to two. And here's what they're realizing. What got me to that half million dollars or what got me to the million dollars isn't necessarily going to take it to the next level. I did that on pure hustle, pure grind, putting in tons of hours to get to this point. Now I'm looking up at the next step, doubling my business, sending it into the stratosphere. And I'm like, how do I put more time in that pure hustle and grind may not get me to the next level? So what can I do? And that's what I want to talk about today. Whether you're a college aspiring NFL athlete, you're in the college football, you're in pro baseball, or hey, you're an insurance salesman, what can you do to take your career to the next level? In my opinion, it comes down to three things. Number one, if you have grown a sizable book of business and you've done that by pure hustle and grind, the next thing you have to do is you have to start working on your brand right now. You may have no brand whatsoever, no personal brand, but you've had success because you've made the number of phone calls, you've made the right amount of proposals and it's just become a numbers game for you and you have grown your business. But guess what? Again, sitting here, looking at the step you've accomplished, the milestone you've accomplished, and looking up at the next level, you're like, how do I create.

More proposals, how do I create more cold calls, how do I create more time? I simply can't do that. I look back early on in my career in the insurance world, I call it back the wow, did I suck days. And I would put in the activities, I made the cold calls.

I went out and saw the right amount of people and when it wasn't clicking, all I thought I had to do was do more of that. Oh, I'll just pick the phone up more and make more dials, I'll go see more people. And yeah, there's a point that works. But if, if you're not working on the right things, the branding and all of that, none of it matters. But now for those people out there listening in, if again, if you're in sales, you're an insurance advisor and you're having success already and you're trying to take it to the next level, you have to start working on that personal brand. You have to figure out your brand, your message of your brand, call it your brand message, and how you are going to create massive awareness around that message. It's a three step process. Who Are you? Who is it you're targeting and what's the brand message for the audience? And then how are you gonna go distribute it far and wide to create massive awareness for that brand? To me, that is how you take your business to the next level. You can try to start working 20 hours instead of 15. You can try to double the number of calls you're making. But I have to believe at some point you're gonna be burned out, tired, exhausted, and you won't wanna take it to the next level.

So if you're sitting there right now, you're driven, you're motivated, you're hungry, you're already having success and you're really trying to establish the legacy. Now, you're trying to play the long game, and you want to take that business to the next level. Heed my advice. Start working on your personal brand. Figure it out who it is that you're targeting and what is that brand message for the audience, and then go to work distributing that message far and wide. Now, how do you figure out your personal brand? Pretty simple. Why? Sit down and ask yourself this simple question. If you weren't in the room, what do you want people saying about you? What words, what phrases? Now, the key here is not what you think people would be saying about you. What do you want people saying about you?

Write all those words down, all those phrases, and then get really critical of them. Look at them, narrow them down. So you get to your top three or four, and that becomes your personal brand. That becomes the brand, the words by which you make your business decisions about. Then you need to figure out who it is. Who are you trying to go after? Now, if you're trying to take your business to the next level, my guess is you're going to be going after larger business than you have in the past. And again, doing that is going to require one hell of a personal brand and a ton of awareness. So you need to go to work on who it is you're targeting and what it is you're saying to them. What's their message? What's their story? What's their goals? What's their challenge? How do you fit into the story with a plan to help them have success and avoid failure? And then you need to go to work with that message that's aligned with your brand, and you need to start becoming omnipresent. How are you going to distribute it? Social media, email campaigns, webinars, public speaking. Your message has to be everywhere. Because here's what happens when you have a personal brand that is recognizable. When you have a message that is clear and targeted and that message is being shared everywhere, you create better engagement with your audience, your prospects, you create better relationships with your prospects and you become an authority in your market. I call that era. Just like ERA and baseball.

Your ERA in your business career is going to determine how high you rise. So I urge you today, if you're sitting here listening to this podcast and you're already having some success, one, be proud. You are having success. What got you here obviously worked. But I'm telling you right now, what got you to this level of success isn't necessarily going to take you to the next level. It's going to require a different skill set. Just like that linebacker for the Alabama Crimson Tide trying to make it in the NFL, it's going to require a completely different level of skill set. Same is true in your business. So my advice to you for today is this. Go to work on your brand. Figure out who it is you are. Do never stray from that brand. Then target your audience with the right message. Then blanket your audience with that message far and wide. You do that, you're going to give yourself more opportunities. You're going to give yourself bigger opportunities. And one, two, three years from now, your business will no longer be a million dollars, it'll be $2 million. It won't be $2 million, it'll be $4 million. And you will have taken your brand, your business to the next level. So go out today, make it happen. Have a great fourth of July. And at the end of the day, you know what happens when clarity and confidence collide. Action happens. Make it happen today. Hey, thank you for taking the time to listen to this Friday bullpen session. If you are enjoying these episodes, please do me a favor. Go over to Apple, subscribe, give it a five star rating. And if you know of anybody in your life, whether it's in your family, personal life, your friends, business colleagues that you think would find benefit in listening to these episodes as well, do me a favor, please share the bullpen sessions with them. I'd be extremely grateful if you did. And again, go out and make it happen today. Thank you.