EP 98 – Quit Procrastinating
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Join me in learning why five alarm problems are avoidable, why procrastination should not be used as a tool, and why we should make speed a part of our game!
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I am so excited for you to join me in my conversation with Chris Wirth! Christopher J. Wirth is the founder and president of No Quit Living, as well as The Positivity Tribe.
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You guys are going to love this Bullpen with Christina Lecuyer!
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Hey, hey! Welcome back to Friday Bullpen Sessions with Andy Neary. Each week I unpack my journey and my struggles in professional baseball, sharing the lessons I learned so you can apply them in business and live a life on purpose. So, if you are ready to join me, grab your gloves, get a ball, and lay hold of a bat, and together we will strike out the limiting beliefs in your life that hinder your personal growth.
It’s already episode 90, and this session is going to be special because today, I will show you how to build a community within your network. You will also learn why a community is important to winning in business in a highly competitive market. But before we get into that, I have a quick announcement to make on how you can level up your prospecting in sales.
If you are an insurance agent struggling with prospecting and building a good relationship with your prospect base, do yourself a favor. Take your prospecting to a whole new level. My Broker Branding Academy is out and enrollment is happening now. When you join the academy, you will receive access to winning LinkedIn sales strategies and learn how to create a bulletproof marketing plan, make sales proposals that win business, and create killer webinars and presentations. You will become a productivity ninja at building a community — a community of prospects asking to do business with you.
Back to our session! Let me give you a quick background on why I decided to talk about community for this special episode.
When the Green Bay Packers won against the Los Angeles Rams during their qualifying match for the NFC Championship finals, I was simply amazed by the consistency of the team. Their quarterback, Aaron Charles Rogers, is very exceptional at 37 years old with so many accolades to his name.
Aaron joined the Packers as a quarterback in 2008 and led the team to the Super Bowl XLV Championship victory in 2010. He was awarded the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player (MVP). He was also named the Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press in 2011 and voted by the Associated Press as the league MVP during the same year.
As the Green Bay Packers entered the finals, Aaron Rogers squared off with another legend, Thomas Edward Patrick Brady, a 43-year old quarterback considered by many commentators and writers as the greatest quarterback of all time. Tom spent the first twenty seasons of his career with the New England Patriots and led the team to its first Super Bowl title and 5 other Super Bowl titles. Tom is a 4-time Super Bowl MVP and a 3-time NFL MVP. In 2020, he joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and powered the team to its first-ever NFC Championship appearance since 2002.
Looking at the two quarterback-legends, they are absolutely phenomenal at their age. At 37 and 43, both athletes are still playing against the best and elite players in the world. While others are already in retirement, Tom and Aaron are still playing at the peak of their careers. Their consistency in their games is nothing short of extraordinary, powering their respective teams to several championship appearances.
Going back to our topic of community, what really caught my excitement is what the Green Bay Packers built as an organization over time. If there is one organization in sports that understands what it means to build a community with its fan base, it’s the Green Bay Packers.
If you have been to the Northern part of Wisconsin, you know that Green Bay is not actually a big place. And yet, the community it has built over time is so huge, reaching millions and bigger than the place. That’s because the Packers built a community around its fan base, even allowing the fans to invest in the team and become shareholders of the organization. No other organization in sports does that. Packer fans have the experience of being a part of the community!
The team does not look at its fans as opportunities to sell more tickets. Instead, Green Bay Packers treat its fans as a family with a community mindset. As a result, its tickets are always sold out — every season has been sold out since 1960. If you want to buy a ticket today, you will have to get in line behind 130,000 other people. This is the impact of how the Green Bay Packers are building a community around the fanbase. It’s the people or the fans lining up to get a ticket, instead of them selling the tickets to the fans.
In a sales cycle, the prospecting phase is the most challenging part. This is where most rejections come. Rejection is every seller’s nightmare, and if you are not consistent with your work, you will quickly burn out. It is at this stage where most sellers and insurance agents fail. They lost the consistency to persist.
But using the same strategies of Green Bay Packers on building a community to sales, you can build a community around your prospects where you can establish long-term relationships with them, providing value to the community. Your prospect list becomes a family.
So, what’s the difference between a prospect list and a community? A prospect list is something you look to extract sales from every single day. On the other hand, a community is something you look to bring value to every single day. Therefore, if you want to win in business today and stay on top of the competition, the best way to do that is to build a community around your prospects by bringing your prospects your unique value.
Some agents have already built a community around their prospects. But along the way, they got lost adding value to the community. They started selling instead of adding value to them, and they defeated the purpose of building a community, causing it to disintegrate. Consistency was lost, leading to failure.
Consistency is one of the key success factors. You have to persist and keep track of your goals. If you are consistent with your works and consistent in adding value to the community you have built, magical things will happen.
There are several strategies for adding value to your community of prospects. You can conduct a webinar or a presentation of the general interest of the community — it could be about financial management, health management, or anything else. You can also launch an email campaign providing tips and daily quotes. Another way is to provide free consultation sessions, helping your prospects learn how to win in their businesses. Think about how you can bring value to the community, and your actions will be truly appreciated.
When the opportunity comes to your community for the need of the products you are selling, they will start connecting with you and ask you to do business with them. You don’t have to hard-sell — your prospects will come to you.
Here’s the key takeaway: build a community around your prospects. However, that’s not quite enough since you can still get lost along the way. You must have consistency in providing value to that community as well. Don’t look at your prospects like they have big dollar signs on their heads. Instead, think of them as opportunities for you to add value every single day.
Do yourself a favor. Sit down, relax, and go over your prospect list. Stop figuring out how you’re going to extract sales from them. Stop making follow-up calls to check on their decisions. Stop sending nuisance emails that fill their inbox with your sales letters.
Instead, start figuring out what value you can give to your community today without wanting something in return. Whether it is a webinar, an email, a free consultation session, or an event to connect your prospects with the others in the same community, make sure to let it happen today. Keep doing that and be consistent in providing value.
When you apply a little consistency and patience, good things will come to you. Just like the great quarterback legends Aaron Rogers and Tom Brady, when clarity and confidence collide, massive action happens. So, go and make it happen today! Start building that community, and you’ll be on track to achieving greater things in life.
Thank you once again for taking the time to read this post. If you know someone-your loved one, a friend, a colleague, or a neighbor, who might benefit from this episode, please don’t forget to share it with them! This show is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast, and YouTube. Please also subscribe to my YouTube Channel for more high-value episodes. And follow me on Instagram and Twitter for some announcements and updates on my upcoming programs and events.
Keep on working on a winning mindset. Go, build a community, and start adding value. With consistency and patience, you’ll soon have a community looking to do business with you instead of you selling to them.
Until next time, folks!
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Hey hey! Welcome back to Bullpen Sessions! Each week I sit down with abundant thinkers who are making a difference in life. We deconstruct the formula they are using to achieve ultimate success in businesses and in life to help you unpack your life so you can also achieve the same level of success. So, grab a pen and paper, and take down notes as we are about to go on a wild ride. Here we go!
I am super excited about this session because I have an amazing guest — Joel Goldberg. One of the major changes of the Tuesday Bullpen Sessions is that I will start focusing on interviewing former and current professional athletes, and those associated with professional sports. Joel Goldberg definitely fits into that category.
Joel is the founder of Joel Goldberg Media, and he is also the author of a fantastic book, Small Ball Big Results, which talks about the little things in life that add up to big results in sports, in business, and in many aspects of life. Joel is the host of a popular podcast, Rounding the Bases, and he is also a part of the Kansas City Royals’ broadcast team as the host of the pregame and post-game shows of the Royals Live. So, if you want to catch the latest updates on the Royals, follow Joel Goldberg on Twitter. You can also check out all his episodes of Rounding the Bases at his official website blog.
What makes this episode really exciting is that we dive into how small-market teams in business can achieve amazing results, just like the Kansas City Royals did in 2015 as the World Series champion. When you lead a team like the Royals, you have to put the right people together in the team and create a winning culture for the entire organization — and by the way, the same principle applies in sports and in business.
Joel also discussed his long broadcasting journey, his rise to where he is today and his work for the Royals. We also talked about his co-host, Jeff Montgomery, an undersized minor league pitcher who rose all the way to the major league level and ended up as an all-time sales leader of the Kansas City Royals. How he applied the principles in sports to business is something you will learn in this special episode.
So, buckle up and get ready to learn a lot from this session.
The Kansas City Royals went through many struggles and challenges. They incurred 97 losses in 2009, 95 losses and 2010, 91 losses in 2011, and 90 losses in 2012. Then all of a sudden, things changed. They found themselves in the World Series in 2014 and won the World Series championship title in 2015. Joel was a part of that journey every step of the way, so I had to ask him what happened inside the Kansas City Royals organization that allowed them to make such a drastic turn.
Joel recalled his first encounter with Dayton Moore in 2007, the General Manager of the Kansas City Royals. He recalled asking Dayton Moore about his plans for the team he managed since 2006.
“What are you hoping to accomplish? What are you doing? And he said, ‘I’m looking to build a championship culture.’” – Joel Goldberg
Joel was absolutely amazed by Dayton’s positive mindset and his long-term goal for the team. Although he was skeptical at first, considering that the team was losing ninety to a hundred games per year, he soon realized what Dayton meant when he talked about building a championship culture and its impact on the team winning the title.
“And he said, I’m not just talking about the 25 guys in the locker room. I’m talking about the ticket takers. I’m talking about the vendors. I’m talking about the accountant. I’m talking about the security guard. I’m talking about the fans, and not just in Kansas City but in the whole region.” – Joel Goldberg
It was not just about the team. The culture that Dayton Moore was talking about building goes beyond the team in the locker room but extends toward the fans and the people involved around the games, such as the ticket holders, the ticket vendors, the accountants, and the security staff.
The culture Dayton Moore built over the years has become phenomenal as observed during the victory parade for The Royals in 2015 in Kansas City, whose population was close to half a million people.
“Early November 2015, the parade in Kansas city had 800,000 people. … We don’t have 800,000 people living in the city here. But I remember the night before — you certainly couldn’t get a hotel in the city because everyone that had come in from out of town had scooped up every single hotel. … That was the culture that he was talking about. This didn’t just happen overnight. This didn’t just happen because of one lucky season.” – Joel Goldberg
Consistency and patience will get you to your goals. These values are what Dayton Moore had when he built the championship culture around the community. It may sound ridiculous at first in 2007, considering the team’s losing numbers back then. Still, Dayton had the patience and consistency to build the championship culture he was aiming to instill around the baseball community. Over time, that culture remained within the team and continued to exist beyond the people in the locker room. The championship culture wasn’t lost.
“What they haven’t lost is that culture. That culture that he mentioned to me back in 2007 has been there. So he had to spend eight years building that culture. … The culture hasn’t left.” – Joel Goldberg
Dayton Moore is the key figure in the championship culture of the Kansas City Royals organization. He is truly an outstanding leader who is very instrumental in raising the team and the fans from a perennial ninety losses per season to the culture of 800,000 people parading the streets of Kansas City, celebrating a World Series title. I asked Joel Goldberg what personality traits he saw in Dayton Moore that made him accomplish such a feat over a span of eight years.
“Well, authenticity for one — there’s no fakeness in him. … That authenticity of being real certainly resonated with this community. But more importantly, I think that … there’s a consistency to these players that have been in this organization. … So, there’s been consistency.” – Joel Goldberg
Authenticity and consistency worked in balance to keep a winning culture in an organization. Dayton has the authenticity to his team as they looked at him as a father figure. The authenticity of Dayton Moore also resonated with the culture he built around the community. But the consistency of the players also played a crucial role in the culture. The players were consistent in their games, and they were consistent in following the culture Dayton built in the Royals organization.
The authenticity of Dayton and the consistency of the players created a perfect combination in forming a championship culture around the Kansas City Royals community. This culture allowed The Royals, who was then a small team not making so much noise in the stadiums, to achieve big results, rocking the stadiums and the streets of Kansas City with thunderous cheers during their victory in the World Series title.
As we talked about starting small to getting big results, it reminded me about Joel Goldberg’s book, Small Ball Big Results. I asked Joel what lessons can we learn from the Kansas City Royals that some businesses could apply to remain competitive and take over the ‘big boys’ in the industry. Joel responded with a fury of questions.
“What is [a] small ball to you? What are the little things that add up to the big things in your world? Ask people about the biggest home run they’ve hit — the biggest swing and miss. I’m not talking in terms of a baseball field, … small ball to me is the culture question. It’s your identity. It’s the little things that you do that, maybe, people don’t see.” – Joel Goldberg
It is all about creating an identity that you can turn into a culture. The little things you do every day and the consistency to keep doing it create your identity. You can use your identity to form a culture that takes care of others and treats people as human beings, empowering them to work for a common goal.
Just as the Kansas City Royals did to achieve victory by creating a championship culture around its community, you can also do the same in business. You can create a culture in your workplace — a culture of leaders and achievers with a winning mindset working as a team for a common purpose.
“It’s a mindset, … and when you have that mindset, you can accomplish anything. [It] doesn’t mean you’re going to win championships every single time. No! But when you get the culture right, you’re going to, for the most part, be in the discussion every day.” – Joel Goldberg
I would like to wrap the discussion by taking it up to the individual level, and the first person that came into my mind was Joel’s co-host in Rounding the Bases, Jeff Montgomery. Jeff was a five-foot, 170-pound pitcher who did not throw a hundred miles per hour like Jordan Hicks. And yet, Jeff Montgomery is known today as one of the greatest closer or reliever in Royals’ history.
I asked Joel to share Jeff’s journey to benefit those who don’t have the mindset to be great and prove that lack of resources should not be a hindrance to success. We can all learn a lot from Jeff Montgomery’s rise to the minor league, becoming the all-time sales leader for the Kansas City Royals.
“He’s my analyst on the post-game show. … He was playing very detail-oriented, very methodical in the way he goes about things. … Those are the things that anyone can control. Does it guarantee you that you’re going to be the top guy? Not necessarily. But it does guarantee you that you’re going to be productive every single day.” – Joel Goldberg
Doing something productive every single day is the key lesson of the Jeff Montgomery story. When Jeff joined the minor league with many future Hall-of-Famers like Barry Larkin, he was ditched by the coach who told him that he’s not as big as everybody else. But Jeff found something to improve on every single day.
At that time, Jeff did not have the resources. He did not have a professional trainer to assist him in improving his skills. Instead, he started focusing on the things he could control by working on his delivery and improving his skills every day during the off-season.
You may feel like you can’t compete with the big boys in the industry in terms of resources. But you can do something with the resources you can control. Keep on improving your skills every single day. Just be better today than yesterday, and great things will happen.
Guys, you need to start following Joel Goldberg if you want to beat the big boys in your own field of business. There are valuable learnings in sports that you can apply in business and your life. Check out Joel Goldberg’s show on Apple Podcasts Apple podcast for more wisdom from his episodes.
Don’t forget to share this episode with those who need to hear it. Share the link to your friends, available at Spotify, YouTube, and Google Podcast. I would be extremely grateful if you would tag me, @andy_neary, and, @joelgoldbergkc, with a snapshot of the episode along with your biggest takeaways on Instagram.
Whether you are an athlete, an insurance broker, or a sales agent, there is so much to learn from the Kansas City Royals’ journeys as an organization and Jeff Montgomery’s story as an individual athlete. Build a culture around the community in your workplace. Do something better today — go, and make it happen. Take care of yourself and the people around you every single day. Anything is possible.
Until next time, friends!
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