In this podcast episode, you’re going to learn why credibility and likability must coexist if you want to be successful in sales in 2023 and how you can achieve sales success by leveraging both.

 

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Video Transcript:
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If all I ever see coming out of your content on LinkedIn is education, education, education. And I am a big proponent of education. You might be credible, but I’m probably not going to be likable because I don’t even know who you are. You have to establish likability, but also establish credibility. And when you bring those two together, it is a powerful combination.

Hey, Hey. Welcome back to Bullpen Sessions. My name is Andy Neary and this is episode 227. Today, we’re going to stick on the theme of content like I talked about two weeks ago. And today I’m going to talk about the two most important tips I could ever give you about creating content on a platform like LinkedIn. If you heed these two pieces of advice today, your content is going to take your business to levels you could never imagine.

It has done it for us and it can do the same for you. But before we get in there, I want to make a quick announcement. I’ve been having a lot of conversations over the past couple of months with sales directors inside insurance agencies, and I’m hearing the same comments over and over. Andy, are producers are struggling with our current training because sales training in the insurance industry is a bit outdated now.

Why are they struggling? Well, it’s pretty simple. The sales training today, just like it was 20 years ago, is focused on what happens after the appointment is booked, how you can drive better sales conversations, how you can ask better questions in meetings, how you can handle objections, how you can become a better closer, which is what sales training should be traditionally, right?

However, the problem your producers are having is they’re not setting appointments. It’s hard for a producer to have a good sales conversation if they’re not getting a meeting in the first place. And that’s where we come in complete calm consulting. We are running full day private workshops to help your team, help your producers book more appointments with the right prospects by creating a marketing plan designed to win today, if they book more appointments with the right prospect, selling becomes easier.

So if you want to know more about our full day private workshops, hit me up. We will get you on the calendar and schedule a call with our team and your producers are going to thank you for it. So let’s dive into today’s topic, The two most important tips I can give you about content on LinkedIn. I’ve been having this conversation a lot lately with the folks that are in our broker branding academy.

The clients that we get the chance to work with one on one, the workshops we’re doing, when I’m on stage speaking, it is a conversation that is coming up over and over again and that is what kind of content should I create for LinkedIn? Andy You have made me realize I need to be on there. I need to be more engaged, I need to be more active and be posting more content, but I don’t know what I need to post.

And if you have been through any of my programs, have said on any of my webinars or my keynote talks, you will know I have said this If there are two pieces of content you need to be creating for LinkedIn today, if you want to drive business, it is creating content, number one that lets people get to know you, and number two, content that educates your prospects.

Now, today I’m going to talk to you why you have to do both. You can’t do one or the other. And I get it’s my opinion. Others might tell you differently, but I know what has worked for our company, what is working for our clients, and I’m going to share that with you today. You have to create it.

You have to be creating content that both lets your prospects get to know you, but educate your prospects as well. And I’m going to tell you why that’s important. So before I talk about the reasons why those two pieces of content matter or those two types of content matter, we have to reestablish what your goal is with content on LinkedIn.

One of the most important pieces of advice I could give you is you are there to drive business. It’s about performance over popularity. And I know that goes against what a lot of my peers think about when I look at how my peers are using LinkedIn. And if that’s how they choose to do it, God bless them. They’re there to become popular.

Every post they make is to to generate some kind of reaction from the peers in the industry. But I can guarantee it’s doing nothing to drive business. And if that’s their goal, hey, more power to you. But I know the reason I’m on LinkedIn is I’m there to do business. I’m there to generate business opportunities. And so if I am going to drive business opportunities, the only thing I care about is talking to my prospects.

And here’s why. Doing it on LinkedIn is important today. Prior to 2020, prior to the pandemic, if you wanted to build a relationship with your prospect, you would have bought them dinner, bought them lunch, take them to a ballgame, go out and play a round of golf. You would have wined and dined them or schmooze them, as they say, right?

Well, that’s not as easy as it was before the pandemic. Things have changed. People don’t get together like they used to. So you have to find a different channel to build a relationship with your prospect. And here’s what’s beautiful. You can build a relationship with a prospect using social media before you’ve ever met them. The number of producers and agency owners that we jump on calls with that tell us.

I feel like I already know you and this is the first time we’re meeting them. This is what drives our business. This is what has fueled our growth, is our ability to establish relationships with people before we’ve ever met them. So how have we done this? It goes back to the two pieces of content I mentioned earlier. We create content that lets you get to know us and we create content that educates you.

Sales is about who knows you, likes you and trust you, right? If you can create those two types of content, what’s going to happen is people are going to get to know you, Your prospects are going to get to know you. If they enjoy the content, they’re going to start liking you. And if it educates them enough over a period of time, they’re going to start trusting you.

Now, let me explain why you have to create both. You can’t just create one or the other. I truly believe today to win business, especially in a digital world, you have to establish two things likability and credibility. And I believe you can’t have one or the other. Let me give you an example. If I just created content that let you that lets you get to know me.

So you see a lot of posts out there about me and my family and my kids, which I don’t have kids, but if I had kids, my kids email me having fun with friends. That content is going to let you get to know me, right? In fact, it might even cause you to like me. But if that’s the only content I create, I didn’t establish any credibility with you.

I didn’t give you any trust in hiring me. And so you may like me, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to hire me as your advisor. And this is, truth be told, where I was stuck for a long period of time in my career. I was an advisor who people liked. But guess what? I always got caught in the friendzone.

And if there’s one piece of advice every one of you listening knows don’t get caught in the friendzone. It doesn’t work for dating and it doesn’t work for winning business. So if you just post content that is all about your personal life, you’re going to establish likability, but you will not establish credibility. Now, if you’re sitting there going, Andy, this is what I hate about LinkedIn, is everybody starting to post pictures of walking their dogs and what they ate for dinner, and yet I’m here to tell you I got bad news for you.

LinkedIn has changed. It’s not the recruiting tool you wanted it to be from 2014. LinkedIn is acting like Facebook did 5 to 7 years ago. It’s just the way it is. You got to get over it. You got to get over your personal beliefs about it. It is a great way to get your prospects, to get to know you.

But remember, if that is the only content you’re creating, you might be likable, but are you credible? I know plenty of people in the industry, people I’m friends with that do a great job of that, but they don’t post anything else. So I don’t even know what they do. I don’t they don’t really have a lot of credibility if I were their prospect because I know them now, I like them.

But man, I’m about if I’m going to hire you to help me fix my seven figure budget problem. I don’t know if you’re the fit for that. I’ll take you out for a beer, though. Now, let’s flip the over the other side. If you just create content that’s educational because you believe your knowledge is what’s going to help you win business, you’re wrong there to.

If all I ever see coming out of your content on LinkedIn is education, education, education. And I am a big proponent of education, you might be credible, but I’m probably not going to be likable because I don’t even know who you are. I see your content, you’re educating me, but I don’t know who you are. So yeah, I see you’re smart.

I see you obviously have the knowledge, but I still really don’t know who you are. So when it comes to hiring somebody to help me with my health insurance or my enrollment or whatever, that is, my commercial insurance, I don’t know you. So it’s going to be hard to hire you. This is why you have to create both types of content.

You have to establish likability, but also establish credibility. And when you bring those two together, it is a powerful combination. And so that’s my challenge to you today. If you’re not creating any content right now, you have to start creating content, even if it’s once a week. But when it comes to what you should be creating, just focus on these two topics content that lets us get to know you and content that has you educating us.

Because if you can focus on those two types of content, you are going to build both likability and credibility. And the best part about doing it on LinkedIn is you don’t have to go pay for a lunch, pay for a round of golf. It’s free. And the more you do it, the more likability and credibility you are going to create so that when your prospects agree to schedule a meeting with you, you’re already walking into the meeting with likability and credibility.

Do you want to have a leg up on the competition? That’s the way to do it. Our clients right now are killing it because they’re able to walk in to a meeting with Prosper X, who already like them and actually have given them some credibility because of the content they’re creating. And when you’re a competition is too lazy to do it, it’s kind of game over for them.

But my question for you is, are you willing to put the work in? If there is one thing that has grown our business in the last two years, it’s those two types of content and nothing else. I’ve shared this in a previous episode. We have we had tremendous growth in 2022 without one cold call, $1 of ad spend.

And it was simply because we created these two pieces of content. That’s it. So that when prospective buyers jumped on calls with us, we already had credibility and they we established likability because we’re letting you get to know our team. I’m letting you get to know me. I’m sorry to tell you, knowledge alone is not going to win you business anymore.

Every one of you listening on this podcast right now, just like me, has lost business is somebody you know, you’re smarter. Then why they had a better likability factor with your prospect than you did. You thought about you thought it was all it took was your knowledge, you being the expert. Now, if you’re not likable, they’re not going to hire you.

But if the only thing you’re doing is being likable without establishing any kind of credibility, you’re in the friendzone. You’re not getting hired. So what’s it going to take? Are you willing to put the time in? If you listen to our podcast two weeks ago about how to repurpose your content, you’re going to realize how you can do this in very little time.

So go watch or go listen to episode 25 if you haven’t. And then come listen to this one again, because if you can just focus on the two types of content I’ve been talking about at length today, letting your prospects get to know you, educating your prospects, your you will create more business opportunities on social media than you know what to do with.

So that’s my advice today. I hope that helped. If you got any questions, you know where to find me. You know how to find my team and like I said at the beginning of the episode, this is one of the things we teach in our full private workshops are full day private workshops. So if you think your team could benefit from something like this, if you would like to help your producers create that likability and credibility using a platform like social media, we’re here for you.

Otherwise, I hope today gave you the clarity, the confidence you need to go out and do some amazing things. Go do them today and have a great weekend.