In this week’s Broker’s Voice episode you’ll learn how to identify your BEST prospects in the Discovery Meeting.

If you’ve been frustrated because meeting #1 isn’t turning into meeting #2, this episode is for you!

Resources:

Video Transcript:

This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos or grammatical errors.

Hey, welcome back to the broker’s voice. Today, there are no guests. You’re just getting me. I apologize. I know from my insurance professionals who tune in every week to the Broker’s Voice. Number one: Thank you. But I know you might be looking for a guest today, but I decided this week I am just going to come straight at you with some coaching.

I thought that you might find this extremely helpful and it’s a topic that I wanted to talk about that I’ve been having a lot lately with insurance advisors, insurance professionals that I work with. You know, one of the things I get a chance to do quite often is travel around the country and perform full day workshops with agencies.

And so I love the conversations that come out of those days together. You get a lot of a lot of objections, a lot of hesitations, right? Because what we’re teaching, quite frankly, goes against the grain of what we’ve been taught in this industry. And what I want to teach you today is a concept that definitely goes against what I know I was taught.

And so as you listen in today and if you have questions, put them in the chat box as as you’re listening, put them in the comments. You know, if you’re thinking like, man, no one’s ever said this to me, that’s true, because probably no one ever has said this to you. And what I’m about to tell you comes from a place where I uncovered some of the secrets to my own success.

You know, for the first ten or 12 years, my insurance career, I was terrible at sales. Truth be told, I was a bad, bad insurance producer. And I often went off of again what I was taught. Right, Pick up the phone, smile, dial all that stuff. And I just wasn’t good at it. At least I didn’t think I was good at it.

You know, mindset is more than than is more stronger than activity. But when I really started going outside the industry and I started observing what under other industries do when it comes to marketing sales and I brought those, I took those strategies and I brought it back into the industry, that’s when everything changed for me. That’s when my results started changing.

In fact, complete game consulting wouldn’t exist unless I had gone outside the industry. I built this business off the back of a mastermind that I had joined where I was the only one out of 40 people that was in the insurance industry. But I got to see what all these other industries in the B2B and the B to C markets were doing with marketing and the messaging and the selling.

And I brought those and I deployed them into my own business and everything changed and it gave me the confidence to build a complete game consulting. So I’m going to teach you one of those things today and that thing I’m going to teach is built off the premise of not every prospect is a good fit for you. Your job is to qualify and disqualify prospects as quickly as you can.

And what I’m going to teach you today is actually goes against what you and I have been taught about volume and quantity. It’s about quality. You and I have been taught the bigger the prospect list, the better, the bigger the pipeline, the better. But I’m here to tell you that is not the case. Size has nothing to do with it.

Quality has everything to do with it. I would rather have less prospects in my pipeline if all of them are legit in high quality. When I started deploying that into my own practice, what I witnessed is I started winning more business with less opportunity and it brought it brought about a hell of a lot less stress because I was that guy a decade ago that would walk into my Monday morning sales meeting feeling so good about my pipeline when the reality was it was 75% of that pipeline was crap.

They weren’t going anywhere. These were people that I was trying to push to the goal line and they did not want to score a touchdown with me. But man, it felt good to come to that meeting with a full pipeline. All I was doing was fooling myself and my sales director quality. It’s about quality. It’s about making sure you are talking to the right people.

And where my eyes were really opened to this concept was when I went to work for a couple of agencies that leveraged the services of a cold calling company. And I know that’s a very, very well-known strategy in the insurance industry. And what’s the purpose of book appointments? But here’s the problem. Most of the agencies that hire cold calling services, number one, the service doesn’t call as many or book as many appointments as they promised they would, but two when they book high number of those cancel.

But three, even when you have the chance to meet with these people, they’re not good meetings. They’re unqualified. Prospects in my eyes were open. So I still deal with the cold here. My eyes were open when I was working for an agency that had a cold calling service, and I was going out, meeting with these prospects and right out of the gate I recognized this was not going to be a good meeting.

So one thing I did to really try to filter whether or not I had a good fit was the first question I’d ask that prospect that came off or came out of the cold calling appointment setting was, I’m interested. I mean, I’m intrigued. What interested you in taking the meeting? What intrigued you to take the meeting? And what I heard surprised me more times than not.

The answer I got was, well, the guy just wouldn’t let me off the phone. So I finally said yes. And I sat there and as I’m hearing this, the first thought in my head was Great, this meeting is going to go far. I’ve got somebody sitting on the other side of the desk, arms folded in a defensive position who doesn’t even want to be here.

Hmm. This is going to be fun. And that’s where most producers find themselves who are using cold calling services now. I am now pooh poohing them. I’m just telling you that is a challenge. That was my challenge a few years ago. So I had to take a couple of steps to try to eliminate that stress and frustration. So the first thing I did is I stopped using a cold calling service, even though the agency was using it, I stopped using the cold calling service.

I said, you know what? What I have to do is I have to come up with a better strategy to put better prospects in my pipeline. So that’s when I started building my marketing strategy. The marketing strategy we often teach here in the complete game marketing playbook, I said I have got to do a better job of bringing better prospects into the pipeline because I know that’s going to naturally lead to better conversations.

And it worked. It took a little more patience, right, Because I didn’t book appointments overnight just like some cold calling services did. But I knew I wanted to have better quality coming in, even if it meant less was coming in. The second thing I did is I knew I needed a way to qualify my prospects or disqualify them really quickly because I’d spent too many years trying to push bad prospects through the pipeline and I’d spend copious amounts of hours, days and weeks with emails and follow up calls and follow up emails only to have that prospect ghost me or push back and I kept trying so hard, even though the prospect was gone nowhere.

And so the second thing I did was I developed what I call today my Do you believe what I believe presentation? And I built this because I was done talking to unqualified prospects and I wanted to do I wanted to know within the first 15, 20 minutes whether or not they’re going to be a good fit for me and I’m going to be a good fit for them.

Now, building this presentation took another it required another mindset shift that I want to share with you, and it required me to realize that not everybody was a good fit and it realized I needed to have the confidence to actually determine if they were a good fit. Not if I was a good fit for them. If you think about most advisors and how you prospect today, you’re getting interviewed by the prospect.

Nine times out of ten, I actually wanted to completely shift it and interview that prospect, have me interviewing them to see if they were a good fit. Now the mindset shift it required is it required me to be okay with walking away from opportunity and it required me to kind of go at this strategy with an exclusive mindset sell what I do.

Almost like it’s in exclusive thing. Not everybody can get it. Not everybody is a good fit and that’s fair. That goes against the grain in the insurance industry, right? You and I were taught volume, quantity pick list. Oh, I learned this concept from a friend of mine in the industry who has gone on to do amazing things. He now works with some of the largest companies in America.

At the time I met him, he was a sales rep with one of the TPP’s and we were talking about a strategy and he talked about his philosophy of the gold coins he gives out every year. And what he was telling me was the TPA they worked for. It recognized that in order for us to do, in order for it to do its best work, it couldn’t take everybody on.

In fact, it knew it could bring on about 12 new clients, maybe before it started putting up against the capabilities of its bandwidth. If it took on anymore, it would actually water down its best work. And so the friend’s job was to go out and find 12 new groups every year. And how he did it is he sold it as an exclusive thing.

I got 12 gold coins to give out, who’s going to get those 12 coins? And he would go meet with employers through brokers and all year would spend his time trying to see who was lucky enough to get 12 gold coins. And here’s what here’s what happens. Here’s what’s interesting. He would sell all 12 by January 1st, on January 1st, and he would spend the rest of the year finding out who would get the 12 gold coins for the next January.

Interesting selling on exclusivity. Not something. And you and I were taught think about where you are right now. This is the question I pose producers at our workshops. If you’re being honest with yourself, how many new wins do you need this year? Number one to reach your sales goal? But two, how many new wins do you need this year before you start hitting, putting up against the capabilities of your bandwidth, before you start feeling a little overwhelmed or maybe overwhelming, your team?

The answer is it’s not as many as you think. For most producers, they need four or five good wins to have an amazing year, maybe seven or eight. You don’t need 40 or 50. So why are you selling as if you need hundreds of people in your pipeline? You only need a few high quality because not everybody is a fit for you.

And if all you need is four or five wins, why not go sell what you have as an exclusive thing? Like, Hey, I’m seeing if you’re a fit for me. And this is what led me to deploying this idea of the Do you believe what I believe presentation? Because I wanted to see if the prospect was going to be a good fit for me.

So when I would walk into my meetings, I wanted to know of the prospect and I were aligned mainly psychographic. If you’ve worked with us, you know, we talk about psychographics at length. Your best prospects are your best prospects because you and them are aligned psychographic, what they believe, what they stand for, how do they make decisions, aligns with what you believe, what you stand for.

And I’m not talking about politics and religion here. I’m talking about what they believe about what you sell, what they stand for when it comes to what you sell. They’re very aligned. That’s why they’re your best clients. They let you do your best work. So I would use this presentation to figure out who let me do my best work, who was going to be a psychographic fit for me.

And if they weren’t no harm, no foul. 15 minutes into the meeting onto the next one. And that’s a tough mindset to have. Don’t get me wrong, it was tough for me, but you got to have that confidence going into these meetings because I would run every internal meeting the same way. I kick it off with expectations, get to know the prospect, go through the fact finding that we’ve all gone through.

But before I wrapped up that Discovery meeting, I wanted to deliver this presentation because I wanted to see if the prospect was going to be a good fit for me. Now, this presentation only lasted three or 4 minutes, made up of a few slides, nothing much, but it gave me a good idea to determine whether or not they were going to be a good fit.

Now I’m actually going to deliver this presentation for you. Now. This is the same topic for this week’s podcast. So if you don’t catch this, go to the podcast that comes out on Friday morning and you’re going to get the same concept because what I’m about to teach you changed my career and you have two choices. You can listen and go, Yeah, that sounds good, Andy but that doesn’t apply to me, which is what a lot of people say, or you can do some about it and actually start using it and start seeing the results, especially if you find yourself in a position where you are getting appointments on the calendar, but they’re not really

going anywhere. This changed my career, so I’d sit down at the prospect and I’d go through again the intros, the expectations, the fact finding, and then I would deliver the presentation. Now I would deliver the presentation using the storytelling formula we teach here a complete game consulting. Now it comes directly out of the book building a story, a brand, but I am a story brand certified guide.

So we get the user content and every story in history has been told the same way. There is a hero who has a goal, but they have a problem keeping them from the goal. Therefore, they need a guide who has a plan, a solution to help them have success and avoid failure. My Do you believe presentation was built around that story selling format?

Now key points of the story. Your prospects the hero, not you. Too many agencies, too many producers think they’re the hero. No, That’s why your marketing is terrible. You think you’re the hero. The prospect is you’re the guide. They’re Luke Skywalker, your Yoda. So I would use the story formula to tell the story of my ideal prospect and what sounds something like this.

You know, most companies we work with, here’s what they want to do. They want to build the best health insurance plan that they possibly can without breaking the bank. They want to build a great health insurance plan that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. I call that my no dumb. I’m like, ain’t no diety. Who who doesn’t want to do that?

I’ve never run into a company says, well, you know, we actually want to have a really bad health plan and we’re willing to pay as much as we possibly can for it, said no one ever. So I’d make a statement like that. That was the goal of our company that we ideally work with. They want to build the best plan they possibly can without breaking the bank.

But here’s why they can’t. You can’t control your cost. And let me tell you why you can’t control your cost. Now I’m about to go into what I believe, what I stand for. This is where you’ve got to make your message a little less vanilla and a little more hot fudge sundae. I’d say there’s three reasons why you can’t control your health insurance costs.

Number one, the health insurance company’s goals are not aligned with yours. Now. Doesn’t mean they’re evil, but their goals simply are not align with yours. How do we know that? Well, 2010, when the Affordable Care Act came out, along with it came a rule known as the medical loss ratio rule. And the rule said For every dollar you bring in, in claims or in premium carrier, you got to spend a certain percentage on claims.

And if you spend less than that, you’ve got to give money back to the client. Now, six or seven years ago, if you were the client, you may have gotten a check back. You know, you’re not anymore. Why? Because they stopped caring about controlling your claims. They were disincentivized. Now, how do we know it’s working for them? Well, go check out their stock prices, and I’d have a slide of the stock brokers.

March 23rd, 2010. Anthem stock price was around $36. Today, it’s either just shy or North of $500 a share. They’re doing just fine. Number two, the health care systems goals are not aligned with yours. How do we know price and quality are all over the map? And I’d have a slide, a visual that would prove it. Price and quality all over the map.

Price does not equal quality. Just because something’s expensive in the health care system does not mean it’s quality. In fact, some of the best providers out there charge a lower or more affordable rate. Why? Because they’re efficient, Worse yet, your employees don’t even get to see the price of quality. And your third problem, the biggest problem you have is this.

And at this point I’d pull out my medical ID card and I’d say, You know what this is? And they’d say, Yeah, it’s a medical ID card. It’s exactly. That’s what you and I see your employees see an unlimited company credit card, because as long as they stay in the PPO network, they can go wherever they want and spend whatever they want.

So if the health insurance carriers goals are not aligned with yours, neither are the health care systems. And your employees are walking around with this unlimited company credit card. How in the world can you build a great health plan that doesn’t cost normal like you can’t? And as a result, you’ve bought you’ve been taught three ways to control your health insurance costs.

Number one, shop carriers every year raise her deductibles and your out-of-pocket limits, or just ask your employees to pay more. At that point, I have made it so clear why you are struggling that if you don’t understand what I’m saying, I have made it visually clear and factual with slides. If you don’t understand what I’m saying, you’re probably not a good fit.

No harm, no foul. 15 minutes into the meeting out of the next one. However, if I saw you doing this the whole time and I actually can see the anger boiling up inside of you a little bit and I know I got a good one now, at that point I would deliver my solution, my process, which I named Hinton’s, and then I would show a case study of one of my clients who had done it well, at the end of that, again, the whole thing took maybe three or 4 minutes if I had a good prospect there.

Look at me. Go on. How do we get that? I want to know how we get what your client got. Great. Let’s move on to step two. When I started delivering this, do you believe presentation, it took my intro meetings to the next level. It turned more meeting ones and the second dates, and it allowed me to win more business without so many prospects in the pipeline.

That simple. So I encourage you to do the same thing. I encourage you to start thinking about how you can do a better job of qualifying and disqualifying your prospects in the intro meeting. The best way to do it is to tell them what you believe and what you stand for, which again goes against what you and I were taught.

We were taught to be vanilla, we were taught to make it, you know, to sit there and listen and and do whatever the prospect needs to do to win the business or do whatever you need to do to win the business. That’s not how we do it anymore. When you stand up for something, you share your opinions. Yes, you’re going to turn some off.

But the good news is those are the folks who are never going to buy from you, but you’re going to turn on the right prospects and these become your best clients, those four or five wins you need. Remember, you don’t need many more than that. Yeah, they become awesome clients. They become clients, your team, the love. And all of a sudden, before you know it, you’ve got a book of business working with people who let you do your best work.

And there is nothing more freeing in this industry than that. So that’s my advice for you today is what are you going to do to put on a more exclusive mine cap in your selling? What are you going to do to interview the prospect as much as they’re interviewing you? And how are you going to build your do you believe what I believe presentation to filter out the good ones for the bad ones.

Hey, if you’re a benefit advisor, replicate the one I just shared, but do something. And if you’re struggling, if you don’t have clarity on this, I do want to invite you. If you want to learn how to do this or you know you need help, do me a favor. At the bottom there, you’re going to see strategy.

Text the word strategy to 414-622-1462. That is our text community. If you want to jump on a call with somebody from the team to say, I need help with this, telling you this thing is a game changer. This thing changed my career. I needed ten wins, ten meetings to win four times, not 20 meetings to win four times. I was talking to better prospects out of the gate.

I was pushing the bad ones out of the out of the pipeline faster. It just led to a lot less stress, a lot more fun with what I was doing. And I know I can do the same for you. So I hope what you learned today created some clarity, gave you some confidence because if you deploy this stuff consistently, you become unstoppable.

So if you need help with this, you need more work in this category. Text the word strategy to 414-622-1462. Otherwise go out, deploy this, Try it out for yourself. Take what you heard from me. Use it for your own. You’ll be impressed by the results you get and your sales goals. Well, thank you. Bye. Well.