1085: The $250,000 Blueprint for Insurance Growth: Conquer Fear to Become an Insurance Superstar with Complete Game Consulting Founder Andy Neary

Robert Plank 0:04 Hey and welcome back to the podcast. Andy Neary is here Andy is a speaker and author of podcast hosts, and he's a coach. He's a podcast coach host back, I say that but also coach to the insurance industry. So Andy has a two step process to go from unknown to unstoppable because the insurance industry is filled with noise, making it very difficult for advisors to stand up and stand out. So Andy speaks to some of these challenges that they face growing their business post COVID, he helps to identify ideal prospects in five steps, build a marketing message to attract ideal prospects create expert credibility to win dream prospects and so much more. So Andy is going to be sharing about the things holding us back. Will we continue to break through all the insights he's learned with by creating his insurance agent, sales playbook, and so much more. So Andy, glad to be speaking with

Andy Neary 0:59 you, Robert, glad to be here, man looking forward to the conversation. Same and

Robert Plank 1:03 so I'm super impressed with you already. I know you're a former baseball player turned insurance advisor and business coach. So what are you all about? In your old words? What's your current passion and focus?

Andy Neary 1:14 Yeah, man. We're on a mission to help 25,000 Insurance producers sell their first $250,000. You know, coming from the insurance industry. It's an industry where you're sold on the you know, sky's the limit when it comes to making money. And then you get in the business, most people don't get in it by design, and then they find themselves in the business. And they don't really have anybody to help them grow their business, they're kind of out on an island, trying to figure it out on their, on their own an entrepreneur, right. And they're, they quickly get burnt out dejected. I know that's where I was early in my career. So when I built the coaching and consulting company to help producers, that was really my mission is to help these people who are getting in the business, even if they've been in it for a while, we're just missing the coaching and training, they need to take their business to the next level. So you know, what lights me up is helping somebody who knows they're not reaching their full potential right now. And but they know what they're capable of all they're all They're missing is clarity. If they have a better plan to execute, they're going to be hitting on all cylinders. And that's what we hope to bring to them. I love it.

Robert Plank 2:18 And I think a lot of us can relate to that right of just knowing that we can achieve more but unsure about all the various things that need to happen and kind of the focus split and probably having a list of a few ideas of saying, Oh man, I wish I could do that in six years, or in three years into the cabin, the the wish list to do list of all the things that I would have should have could have done. And also there seems to be the element of like, the harsh realities, right? Like you mentioned about how we're the insurance agents are kind of sold on these big dreams. But then there's the harsh reality of you have to do way more than you thought you needed to do, right, you have to do the marketing and be on podcasts and advertising, do way more sales calls just to get a tiny little sliver. And so I mean, is there a good starting point here just as far as like someone that you help that you teach? Is there like a number one missing link or something that you say, hey, you know, everyone gets this wrong? This opens your eyes? What is it?

Andy Neary 3:18 It's a game of attention, whether you sell insurance, or you're growing your own business, selling cupcakes, your brand, you need attention, the win business today, you have to grab other people's attention. And I know when I look at the insurance industry, there's this belief that, you know, if you build it, they will come I sell insurance. Therefore, I'll have all these people who just come to me because they want insurance quotes. Well, that's not how it works. You actually have to go grab their attention, because it's a noisy industry, no matter what industry you're in. And so really the place to start, Robert is understanding that you are a personal brand. And your number one objective is to get as many people to know about your brand as you possibly can. And that's where a lot of entrepreneurs get stuck, because just that thought of putting yourself out there brings up fears of comparison and judgment and failure. Right. And I think that's where a lot of entrepreneurs go wrong is they do have that fear of what will happen if I put myself out there, I put my brand on social media, I put my brand out on a public speaking stage, wherever that might be. A lot of fears come up. And that's what keeps a lot of entrepreneurs from growing is they're just not letting enough people know they exist.

Robert Plank 4:34 You're reminding me of like when the ballot comes in the mail to vote and there's all the there's like the lesser known politicians, right when I vote for like my my house rep in Congress or my mayor, and I look at the names and I maybe recognize one or two but I'm like, there's like five or six people and they probably run and they probably do everything they can all day every day just just for just their name to get known and I'm like I really haven't even heard of this person's name. One. So I think you're so right that it's it's hard just to get even a tiny sliver of attention. And I mean, in that case, you're talking about these politicians who like they probably overcome that confidence issue. But even then they put in all the work and no contention. So for us even like a few steps back from that, if you have these insurance people who say, Well, I'm I cringe ahead of time, or I worry about what people will say what both think, how do we break through that? Is that just a matter of Krisi? Anyway, and have someone coached through and then look at the evidence, like how do we overcome this kind of irrational but understandable fear? Yeah,

Andy Neary 5:39 it's very understandable. I talk about this a lot. You know, you said, I'm a former baseball player, I was fortunate enough to spend some time in pro baseball. And I tell people, that was one of the one of the biggest reasons my pro career lasted as short as it did. It was because of the same fears, comparison, judgment and failure. And it is it is the same thing that holds people back in business. It's that fear that you know, what happens if this doesn't work? You know, that was something I was worried about. When I started my first business, I told you offline, I wasn't an entrepreneur until I turned 41. And my biggest fear with what happens is if this fails, and I think one of the most comforting moments for me, Robert was, when I realized, if this fails, I'll just go back to selling insurance. I realized I have nothing to lose, I'm not going to be homeless, not gonna be out on the streets. If this doesn't work, I'll just go back to doing what I used to do. And I think that's for a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of entrepreneurs are, have gone into the world of entrepreneurship to break away from the corporate world, or break away from the nine to five, well, what's the worst thing that's gonna happen if you try to do something as an entrepreneur, and it doesn't work, you might have to go back and sell or do what you used to do. It's not the worst thing in the world. So you've got nothing to lose, put yourself out there, get as many people to know you exist. And it's going to help grow your business. Here's something I had to learn the hard way, Robert, when you're an entrepreneur, you're in sales, whether you like it or not, you better work on your sales skills. Because if you are growing your own business, the only way it's going to grow is if you tell a lot of people that you can help them.

Robert Plank 7:19 I love it. And so this is some really freeing advice here, right? But you're saying that even if the worst possible case happens, your business fails, you're going to revert back to 95, and restore and reassess. And then it but as far as hopefully avoiding that path, if you can, then really embrace this whole idea of sales. And when you say embrace sales, what comes to mind are these ideas of like posts every day, think about what your quote is, as far as like people that you want to talk to people that you want to get on your calendar, people that you want to follow up with. But that's just what my impressions are. So when you say that you should really be focusing on sales, like, what does that mean? What are the handful of tasks?

Andy Neary 8:00 Yeah, great question. I look at everything like a process, right? And marketing and sales go hand in hand. And one thing we really help advisors with is how to build marketing and sales systems. Because first, you got to open the door, right? And then sales is what closes the door. And so your reference this episode is the two steps to go from unknown to unstoppable to have a better sales strategy, you have to have two things dialed in, who are you talking to? And where are you talking to them. So you got to know who your ideal prospect is not everybody is a good fit for what you have to sell. And you have to understand that I come from an industry that thinks all prospects are good prospects, that's not the case, you've got to get dialed in on who you're trying to attract to your business. The second thing is once you know who they are once, once you know what the message is, you have to have a clear strategy to know where you're going to put that. When I got in the insurance industry, Robert, in sales, I was taught one thing, pick up the phone and make a bunch of cold calls, right? Well, the game has changed. I call it that's linear awareness. When I pick up the phone, I can only call one prospect at a time. Today, I can go make social media content, I can go public speak, I can host a podcast, I can send out email campaigns. There are so many ways today to create exponential awareness getting the one message in front of a lot of people at one time. If I were starting over as an insurance producer today, that's exactly what I would lean into is what what can I do to get my message in front of as many people as I possibly can at one time, why it's a better use of my time. And it's gonna get a lot of people to know me faster.

Robert Plank 9:41 Is it safe to say that this is maybe somewhat cyclical, like you have these these two buckets, right? You say, Who am I people, and where are they hanging out? And so where are they hanging out? Meaning that they might be at this event where you're speaking they might be listening to your podcast, and I'd be on social media and it seems like, Well, okay, so I first say like, who are my people? And then that leads me to where I'm hanging out and I go on post, and then you get some of your, your leads and your prospects and your sales. And then you might be saying, well, I want to repeat that, right? If going on podcasts work, then I'll do more of that. But then there's also like, the FOMO aspect isn't there? You say, Okay, well, I'm the podcasting is working. But who should I also be looking into speaking events? I'm like, how do you balance that? How do you say, Well, I want to go back to the well, but I also want to do new stuff. But I'm also kind of not sure if the new stuff is a waste of time, or it hasn't picked up speed yet?

Andy Neary 10:35 That's a great question. I think everybody today should view themselves as a media company that has happens to sell a certain product, right? Because you have to grab attention. Now you bring up a really relevant point, don't get caught chasing the next platform, because somebody told you, that's the platform you have to be on. I'll give you an example. A lot of people tie us to LinkedIn, because we teach people how to use LinkedIn. But there's markets in this country where insurance advisors actually wouldn't be wasting their time. If they're on LinkedIn, it's a rural market. People still do things with a handshake, they should actually be going door to door and dropping in and saying hi to people as outdated as that seems. That's a strategy that would still work in their market. So it's to answer your question, it's understanding your market? Where do your people hang out? Are you selling the people who hang out on Facebook, LinkedIn, tick tock, maybe they do things hand to hand, maybe they attend live events, or public speaking, is something you should think about, maybe you're targeting people who are part of an association, go speak at that association, right? There's not one way that works. But it does require you to understand where your ideal prospects are hanging out for sure.

Robert Plank 11:50 I love it. So and this all to me, like relates to what you're saying of, we need to expand our thinking somewhat, right? You're not just in insurance. You're a media company, you're an entrepreneur, you need to figure out who else you can talk to, and get attention to some of this. And so you say that you didn't even realize that you were an entrepreneur until you're 41. Like, what happened there was that when you gave up the baseball and started doing this, like, what was the turning point?

Andy Neary 12:18 Yeah, no, I was actually I was an insurance at that point, almost 20 years. And my story really started in insurance in 2014. I had had been in it for 13 years. At that point, Amy and I, my wife and I decided to move to Colorado. And I found myself in a market where nobody knew who I was. And I said, Okay, I've got to start over here. Am I going to do it the old fashioned way, which is the way I was taught to cold call pounding the pavement, or am I going to try something else? So I decided to build a personal brand. And in 2014, Robert, people in our industry are like, What are you doing? Nobody does that. I said, I'm gonna do it. And it worked. I built a nice book of business in a market. Nobody knew me, because I got my message out far fast. And why? Fast forward four or five years, I had some peers say, teach me what you did. And so I'm like, wait, I could get paid to teach people to do this. So it started out as a side hustle. And then in January of 2021, I said, I know where this is going. I want to do the coaching and the training. And so I gave up my book of business went all in on complete game consulting, which is the business I have today. And I was at that time. For me when I started it as a side hustle. I was 41. But in 2021, I was 43. And what I realized here was my pivotal moment, Robert, what was that? What happens if it fails, I'll just go back and sell insurance. The other moment I had where I realized that could be an entrepreneur because I did not grow up in a family of entrepreneurs. Is I remember, there was a day, I was an a terrible dad lost a couple clients, I had a nice coaching contract that they were going in another direction they got acquired. So I lost the contract. And I had that thought of maybe it's time to go back. But I remember going to bed that night. And I was super excited to get up and try it all over again the next morning. And when I had that thought it hit me that if I'm willing to embrace the suck as bad as today was, but I'm still excited to wake up tomorrow and do it all over again, I can do this. And that was my moment where I realized it took me a lot longer than a lot of other entrepreneurs. But I can do this thing. I've got the mindset it takes to do this because of that feeling right there.

Robert Plank 14:33 And we get to that point like what's where does the embracing the suck energy come from? Does it happen just naturally from trial and error? Is that a thing we can tap into and repeat? Like how do we get to that that mental state you're mentioning great.

Andy Neary 14:47 I learned from mentors man, I wish I could say came up with all this stuff, but I didn't a lot. I have a lot of good mentors in my life and I've had a lot of good sunlight, some who I've never met. And one lesson I've learned is if you're going to build a business you got to be thinking in years and day Okay, it's now weeks. And I've seen a lot of peers that I've been in masterminds with that are on to their fourth different type of business now in four years simply because they lack patience. You know, if it didn't turn into a six figure business in six months, they're on to something else. And to have that mindset, you have to apply patience. You can't see all the screws, all the portraits behind me, but there's three words, consistency, persistency, and patience. You got to be consistent show up every day, you got to keep doing it long after everybody else quits, and then have patience. This isn't a short, quick when there is no finish line. Enjoy the process.

Robert Plank 15:38 amazing and inspiring. And so I don't know anywhere close to anything about baseball, as you do. All I know is when I was like eight years old, I was in little league. But a big lesson from there was that you have to put like, way more effort into just a little result than you thought like when you when you swing the bat, you have to like really follow through and you have to catch like 500 fly balls and 500 grounders just to be able to like do just okay at a game where you might like, you might throw one ball. And that's it. And you did all this practices for this little thing. And and what comes to mind is that there's the st from Gary Vee document don't create, right? And so you, you do a thing, you get really good at it. And you put in so much effort. And then you say, Okay, well, now I'll teach others to do this thing that that I was able to do. And if that doesn't work out, you fall back on the doing and that doesn't fall back, you work back on the nine to five. And so that seems to be kind of a an organized focus way of doing things. And also there's that amount of self awareness that people don't talk a lot about with their peers and with their masterminds of kind of seeing the behavior of others, that maybe they themselves are not aware of plus, such as the entrepreneurial ADD and patience and saying, Okay, well, that's what I don't want to do. That's a valuable lesson. And so in your ups and downs of your entrepreneurial adventure, do you have any scary stories to tell us you have any moment of like failure, frustration, panic, where you thought it was all over? Yeah,

Andy Neary 17:11 it was that moment I talked to you about. I had built a business. It was 2021. The first year I fully went into it. I don't have a story where I woke up one morning with zero showing up in my bank account. But I was down to two clients. And trust me, it wasn't going to pay the bills. And I will share this because you said something couple things I want to address to answer this question if I can, Robert, you talked about the baseball and how much goes in just to swinging a bat or throwing a baseball throwing a strike, right? I was asked one time, why are so many athletes and insurance and why did they do so well. And I said it's because they know how to put the work in off the field. Everybody wants to be Tom Brady throwing a touchdown in the Super Bowl, nobody sees the work he puts in day after day to be able to do that. If you're going to be an entrepreneur, you got to be a student of the game. You got to study you got to have personal development be your number one priority. But to go back to that day where I was down to two clients, when I had that thought, maybe it's time to go back, I did something I never expected myself to do, Robert, here I am with two clients. And that moment, instead of going, Okay, I give in uncle I'm gonna go back to doing what I'm doing. I went the other way. Not only do they say I'm gonna keep doing it, I hired a business coach. I joined a mastermind. And I joined another group of mail professionals that I was going to spend time with throughout the year to keep me accountable. That investment those three investments were there to the tune of $20,000. But my business never looked back from that day. That's the biggest epiphany what came out of a nightmare. When I thought it was over. I did something that my former self would have never done, which is double down. And I spent money I did not have. And I threw it in betting on me. And I can I'm fortunate say the business has never looked back that was in the fall of 2021. And we've never looked back.

Robert Plank 19:20 I love it. And that's that's powerful to think about this idea of doubling down and sometimes doing what seems irrational in the moment because you said hey, this was the goal that I made for myself. And I'm going to take it seriously I'm going to follow through and pursue and so when our last few minutes are Andy, what question Am I not asking you? Is there something that like You're like itching for Robert plank to ask you?

Andy Neary 19:45 That is a great question. If that if I were to say what question would I want to be asked if I were speaking to a bunch of entrepreneurs? It's why should I create content? And I know that sounds like an interesting not that Sexy question. But I will I will share this with you, Robert. The reason I believe in content so much, whether that be social media content, email content. Public speaking, as you mentioned, this is how you impact people. I think if more entrepreneurs leaned into impact, they would see a greater impact on their income. Because I think a lot of business a lot, too many entrepreneurs, yourself, myself included, have been guilty of just chasing the revenue. But the whole reason I create as much content as I do, we look at ourselves like a we're a marketing media company that happens to sell insurance training services, is because I know the impact it has on people's life, they may never hire us. But if I can impact people's lives, I know I'm doing the right thing. I'm doing my job. And ultimately, we are going to be rewarded with a lot of business because of that, and I'll share this last story. And I know we're over. I had a peer reach out to me in 2021. And he said he wanted to catch up with me. So we jumped on Zoom. And this was my moment, I realized this, I thought we were catching up. And we jumped on the Zoom, and he wanted to jump on Zoom to thank you want to connect the thing. And I said, Well, why are you thanking me? Man? We haven't seen you in two years, what have I done. He said, I want to thank you for your content. He said, the pandemic was really rough on me, I went through a bad divorce. I almost died of COVID. And I thought about anything at all. And your content kept me going. And that's when I realized that it's so much more than income in what we do. Whether it's running the business, creating content that grow the business, it's about impact. And if you focus on impact over income, you will make more money than you possibly ever could dream of.

Robert Plank 21:53 So do you have any advice as far as like how much content we should be looking to make or what impact like you always think about like, well, if you're doing none, make it a habit or routine and build up and strengthen the muscle. But what's your advice is someone says, Hey, you know, I've heard this so many times that I need to make the YouTubes and the podcasts like what should we be looking as far as goal setting? Good

Andy Neary 22:15 question. I tell people in that one, start slow. Start with something you can stay consistent with. If it's once a week, start with once a week, as long as you can run it consistent. That's all I care about. I just want consistency. But here's how you got to think about content cuz I get this question too. And how much is too much? When do when do I become annoying? I said, Well, my thought is if you if you're going at it with the goal of creating impact and delivering value, you can never post enough. If all you're going to do is ask for business in your content, yeah, you're gonna eventually become annoying. But if the goal is to deliver value, here's how you want to think about it. Every day you make a piece of post, every time you post something, you're giving yourself a chance to land in somebody's feed or inbox, if it's an email on the right day. If you only do it once a month, or once a week, you give yourself just one chance to do that a week. If you do it every day, you give yourself a chance every day to land in somebody's feed or inbox on the right day for them to hit reply, or send you a message saying I want to do business with

Robert Plank 23:16 very powerful just looking for that one connection. And so what's the next step here? If someone says, you know, Andy had all this good advice? How do I know if I'm right for him in his training, whether it's like entrepreneurial or the insurance agent sales playbook? How does someone know if they're a right fit? And then are what's the call to action? Yeah, I'll

Andy Neary 23:34 just say this, Robert, man, if somebody's out there, you're listening. And you're like, Yeah, we need to get dialed in on who our target buyer is. We need a better content marketing strategy, whatever that might be. Reach out to me on LinkedIn if you're there. I'm very active there. Andy Neary complete game consulting or check us out a complete game consulting.com.

Robert Plank 23:51 Awesome, complete game consulting.com. And that's Andy Neary on LinkedIn that spelled N E A R Y. Andy Nari. And so as we're wrapping up our conversation here, Andy, you make all the content you do all the speaking, you get all these ideas swirling in your head. Do you have anything to end this as far as a soundbite? Is there a powerful quote or lesson that you can give us and really blow your minds?

Andy Neary 24:15 I'm gonna steal this from a mentor. I'm sorry. Here's why you have to create content and grab awareness. We trust people we see. We trust people we know. And we trust people we learn from every one of us as somebody on social media we follow. We would buy a product if we promote it because we trust them and we've never met them. That's how you grab somebody's attention. We trust people we see we trust people we know and we trust people we learn from Are you doing it enough?

Robert Plank 24:40 And we need to be so that we can be that person. So Andy Neary complete game consulting, very lovely talking to you, friend.

Andy Neary 24:47 Likewise. Thanks, Robert.

Robert Plank 24:51 Really appreciate you being a listener of the marketer of the date Podcast the place to go right now. If you want to know more about running your own podcast is De FY podcast.com/free Go there right now claim your free gift dfi podcast.com/free