Podcast
Where the Insurance Pros Meet
Hosted by Mark Miletello · ENGLISH
The most exciting thing to hit the insurance industry in decades. Training from the industry's best. Marketing concepts for property and casualty agents that are innovative and effective. Presentation delivery training and software that helps you win!
11episodes
Episodes
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Three Marketing Tips To Increase Your Insurance Business, Phoebe Chongchua, Ep. 11
Feb 14, 201800:44:07Tap to summarizeBrand Journalist & Marketing Consultant, Phoebe Chongchua, shares three tips to increase insurance sales by becoming an online authority in your industry. Learn how new media marketing builds trust with consumers and helps close deals. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Guest: Phoebe Chongchua Phoebe Chongchua is a multimedia Brand Journalist, Consultant & Marketing Strategist who makes brands Remarkable. Using her skills as TV News Journalist, she connects brands and consumers through powerful storytelling. Companies gain a competitive advantage when they learn to "Be the Media." Phoebe is a "Top 50 Podcaster to Follow." Listen to "The Brand Journalism Advantage" podcast in iTunes or at ThinkLikeAJournalist.com Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Mark Miletello: Welcome back to the show. I'm excited; we have a special show lined up today. We have one of the world's greatest minds in marketing and media and journalism. Our guest is a brand journalist and consultant who teaches businesses how to think like a journalist and be the media. I'm going to dive into that because I want to know what does that mean to us, how to think like a journalist, and how do we be the media. It's awesome. She launched the brand Journalism Advantage Podcast in the fall of 2014, and within nine months she was named a top 50 podcaster by Cision for shows on public relations, marketing, and social media. She also made the list of 35 outstanding podcast picks by entrepreneurs on Inc.com. She's an award-winning former TV news journalist from right here in San Diego who loves the pursuit of a good story. Welcome our special guest Phoebe Chongchua to the show. Phoebe Chongchua: Hey Mark, how are you? Mark Miletello: I have to step up my game. I'm doing great, but I don't even know, how many shows do you have live out there that you produced? Phoebe Chongchua: For the brand Journalism Advantage we have about 400+ episodes to date. You know that is no easy feat, right? Mark Miletello: It's not an easy feat. For the listeners, Phoebe is the inspiration behind and really my mentor in launching one of the first and greatest, I believe, platforms for our industry. What's so unique about you, Phoebe is that you've been around our industry now for at least nine to ten years. With your background, and now you know a lot of our background, it's just going to be an unbelievable show too, so thank you for joining us. It's an honor and a privilege. Phoebe Chongchua: You know what, Mark? I think that what you are doing truly is an inspiration and should be listened to by many agents because this is what it's all about, getting your voice out there, being heard and giving valuable information to the agents so that they can thrive in the industry. There aren't a lot of people out there doing this. Mark Miletello: We're jumping right into this, and I love it, but you know our industry. I feel like our industry is way behind on a lot of the social, maybe it's a lot of industries Phoebe. You work with very, very large corporations, some of the world's largest corporations. You've worked with Mom & Pop shops, you've worked with anyone in between. Is it me or is our industry way behind online marketing, social media, things like that, or is it really everyone struggles in that area? Phoebe Chongchua: I think a lot of brands and large corporations are definitely excelling in this space, but then there are a lot of brands that just don't get it, and they're really creating these streams of broadcasts where they get on a platform, and they think, "I've just got to hit it with marketing," and that's where they're going wrong. They're really not telling a story; they're not sharing their real reason for why they are doing what they're doing in the industry and how it's going to help people. That's what's most important, and that's kind of where this whole think like a journalist mentality comes in. When you think like a journalist, your number one rule is to find the story and make it a value to the end user. Who's the end user? When it's media, it's your viewing audience, or radio, it's your listener-ship. In the cases of brands, if they can think like a journalist and craft stories that are valuable to their end users, their core audience, their future customers, their current customers, they're really engaging them and bringing that story to them to help them through the buyer journey and that cycle of making decisions to choose their company, their product, their service. Mark Miletello: We're going to dive into this because I'm going to extract everything I can in this short amount of time we have together because you have so much to offer any industry, especially where the insurance pros meet the insurance industry. I definitely want to just pause and say thank you for inspiring me to launch this, coaching me. I don't want to use the phrase that I'd like to use, but you've polished me, and there's a lot of work to go, but I'm getting better. I've got to tell you, I've interviewed some of the greatest in our industry, and you're one of the greatest in your industry, but also knowing that you're one of the television's and online and podcast, you're one of the great interviewers out there, I'm a little bit intimidated. Phoebe Chongchua: Oh no. You know what I like about the podcasting platform? You take up space on someone's prized possession, their smartphone, their iPhone. You own space on that, and you're plugged into their ears, and they're listening while they're walking or running. You can be as real as ever. You don't have to be that broadcast journalist to get into this. What you have to do is have a message, care about it, Mark, as you do, and then drill down. Get the information out of each guest, make it valuable to your listener-ship and they'll keep coming back. Mark Miletello: Well, thanks for the confidence. I needed that right off the bat. Phoebe, let's jump into this. Let's talk about what you do and how you have become one of the greatest in your industry and how you can help our industry. This is where the insurance professionals meet; you are a professional in the media space, give us a professional tip right off the bat, something, a piece of technology, something, a tip that can transform our business. Phoebe Chongchua: This is probably one your industry, at least the agents, haven't heard of, and they might do a, "Huh," scratch their head and might have to hit the 30 second back button when I say it, but trust me. If you do any blogging, if you do any writing for the web, I'm going to give you a tool that is incredibly valuable. I actually got this from a guest on one of my podcast shows because I ask a similar question about a resource or tool that they can use, but I'll tell you what, it's really worth its weight in gold. This is called a headline analyzer. I'm sure in your show notes, Mark, you'll put a link to it, but it's basically from the Advanced Marketing Institute. What's a headline analyzer? This is a little bit crazy, when I got into TV, we wrote headlines, that bait that draws you in to watch those, what we call, teases so that you'll watch the 5 o'clock news or the 6:30 newscast. A headline analyzer takes your headline that you think it's so awesome and then tells you whether it really is awesome or not. It tells you if it's awesome not just for people, meaning the actual humans, on the web we write for the robots too. We write for the algorithms and all the bots that are searching the web, so you have to make your headline work for two things. When I first started writing on the web a long, long time ago, I thought it was really cool to be clever, that clever journalist like I was on TV. I realized clever doesn't pay, you have to be straightforward, you've got to be hard-hitting, and you've got to make your point, and that's what's going to make a good headline. Why am I telling you this? As an insurance agent, you may or may not have a blog, you may or may not write on LinkedIn. If you are not, you're making a huge, huge mistake and I'm sure we're going to get into that as we go through this episode. The headline analyzer will tell you things like is this hitting emotionally at the level you want? Is it hitting intellectually? Guess what, in the insurance industry, there's a lot of space for writing about things that are both going to hit intellectually and emotionally. I'm sure when you guys go on sales calls you guys are hitting on both levels, the intellectual and emotional. What's going to happen if you don't have life insurance, for instance, and your husband passes away? How will your wife be taken care of? That's emotional. If you're writing about stuff like that, but your headline doesn't match the content of your writing and doesn't work for the search engines and doesn't work at an impactful level for humans, then your writing isn't going to go anywhere and isn't going to be seen. That's why I recommend this. It's very easy to use, you just type in the headline, and it'll tell you whether you're writing it at the level of a complete novice or whether you're writing at the level of an expert copywriter. Mark Miletello: Thank you and we will definitely share the link. I'm going to get your commitment right now that maybe five or ten or twenty shows down the road I want you back because you've given me since I've known you, Phoebe, yo...
Transcribe →New Marketing and Training Platforms for Multiple Line Agents, Lance Johnson, Ep. 1
Feb 14, 201800:27:55Tap to summarizeToday's episode is on new marketing and training platforms for multiple line agents. Lance Johnson is the co-founder of IA Trainers, (Insurance Agent Trainers). Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1 Where the Insurance Pros Meet, episode one. Lance Johnson If you could help someone get what they want, you're going to get what you want. Speaker 1 Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together. Managers, coaches, and producers. The very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now, here's Mark Miletello, a top one percent producer, manager, and your host of Where the Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello Welcome. I'm Mark Miletello. Today we're going to discuss new marketing and training platforms for multiple line agents. We have on the show with us co-founder of IA Trainers, that stands for Insurance Agent Trainers, and my partner in the development of the new dynamic training platform MarkMiletello.com. Welcome, Lance Johnson to the show. How are you? Lance Johnson Well, I'm doing great, Mark. Thanks a lot for having me. I appreciate you having me on board today. Mark Miletello Well, I'm excited to have you on board, and some of the things that I know you're going to share with us is really revolutionizing the industry. Lance, you know I'm a golfer, right? Lance Johnson That's correct. Mark Miletello There's nothing better than to walk up to the first t-box and right off the bat crush a drive down the middle of the fairway while everyone is looking and waiting. The rest of the game may not go so well, so while everyone is listening and waiting, I'd like to start the show the same way with valuable information that will just crush it. Lance, for our insurance and financial services listeners, can you give us a quick tip right off the first box? Lance Johnson Yeah, you know my first tip to anybody in business is it's all about getting people what they want, providing things to help people get what they want. The first rule of thumb I go by is if you can help someone get what they want, you're going to get what you want if that makes sense. Mark Miletello It absolutely does, and I totally agree with that. I'm excited to dive into this today to find out more about that. But first Lance, let's go to some industry news. Right now, the insurance industry is going through some crazy times. Training in the industry right now is news that auto insurance losses are climbing at an alarming rate. Many insurance companies have been caught off guard by this trend, some in a major way like I said, and consumers, of course, want to know why? For some time, auto insurance rates were trending consistently down, believe it or not, competition among other things. Since the great recession, since '08, '09 this trend has reversed. Rates again are on the rise; the reasons are there are more and more cars on the road. Those cars are driving much more annual mileage than before. There are higher medical costs, which always seems to be a factor, but also higher repair costs have been a major trend as well. Lance, I know you. You drive all over the state, and I know your commute. You drive a lot of miles, annually right? Lance Johnson Yeah, I do. I put the miles on because I love being on the field working with clients. Mark Miletello I know, and I think most of us if we look at the mileage we drive, and maybe you and I are just from a larger city, but I think people are driving more as the economy picks up. Also with the age of smart cars, the technology is supposed to be there to help with wrecks, right? Self-driving cars, things like that. What's going on here? It's really Lance, it's the other technologies that are causing more wrecks. Everything I guess cell phone related, navigation apps, texting, calls, et cetera. All this including those higher miles that are driven seems to be causing more wrecks, and guess what, the more wrecks that are happening from cars that are now much more expensive. Either way, as it stands, the industry right now cannot raise rates fast enough, and consumers, of course, are not too happy of this trend. They want to know why. It's difficult times not only for the companies but also for agents. That's what I'm excited to have you on board to help us hear some professional tips and strategies and things that the agents can control. We can't control the claims, and the trends, and the rates, but it does make things more difficult for us in the field of course. Before we jump into that, I want to hear some professional strategies from you. This is where the pros meet, and you have shown that you're a pro in the age of technology and things like that. Lance, can you tell me a little bit about how you became successful? Lance Johnson I've become successful by really analyzing what successful people do, and trying not to reinvent the wheel. My dad, he was a successful doctor, and he told me, "You know what, you've got to find what you like to do, get up every day and just do that same thing every day." For example, as you know me, I rode motorcycles professionally. I got up, I trained, and I became successful. I got into real estate. I got up every day, I did real estate. People knew that Lance Johnson did real estate loans. When the crash happened, I went back into technology. As you know, we revolutionized the car industry with some nifty technology, but if you talk to anybody, Lance Johnson was the automotive technology guru. Now my biggest tip is just get up, find what you like to do, and just get up every day and do it. Mark Miletello That kind of brings us to today, and again, I know you from the automotive technology, which was really the leading, one of the leading minds out there in that and you had some tremendous success in that arena. Of course, you and I got into dirt bike riding. I know that you were on all the magazine covers back in the day, but that kind of led us to grow together in this new venture called insurance agent trainers or IA Trainers. Tell us how your technology background led to that discovery. Lance Johnson Well, you know I'll just get a little personal. My wife is an agent, she works for one of the top agencies, one of your agents. About a year ago, she came back from an appointment, and the loan officer, which you know, when it comes to agents selling P&C, the best referrals she can get are from loan officers. She was asked to go to lunch, the loan officer was 15 minutes late, was on the phone for 30 minutes and then he hangs the phone up and says, "What are you going to do for me? I already get coffee and donuts." I just tried to put my head together, how do I give an insurance agent something of value to where they can have an answer to, "What are you going to do for me?" With the technology out there, I came up with the concept of using our agent marketing software to give, it goes back to that tip of the day. If I can give a realtor what they want, they're going to give a loan officer what they want, and now that we can help the realtor and the loan officer get what they want, we as insurance agents are going to get what we want, which is referrals on home and auto. Mark Miletello Lance, I've had the luxury of really being with you from the beginning of this process as a partner in growing this concept, and watching you have the success. Some of those struggles that you have I think is when you say that, yes, I agree, and anyone would agree that if you help others get what they want, you get what you want. I think one of the challenges that you've had is relaying exactly. Can you pinpoint as exactly as you can the technology, how the technology helps others get what they want, and in fact benefit the insurance agent? Lance Johnson Yeah, so for example, in the insurance, real estate, loan officer world, the loan officer real estate relationship is a fruitful relationship, it's a proven relationship, it's working now. A realtor's best referrals are loan officers, and a loan officers referrals, his best ones are from the real estate agents. The insurance agent, it may maybe have a great relationship, they may get referrals, but a lot of times as you know are last minute. By providing a real estate agent with the most advanced and automated system to market their properties, you're helping them sell their properties sooner, giving them technology like text codes and websites that automatically make themselves, you're not only helping them sell their property sooner, you're giving them things to make their job easier. Then for those realtors, when you sponsor it through a loan officer, that loan officer is looking, the realtor is looking to that loan officer as that loan officer gave him something to make his life easier. To cap it off, if you can sponsor the loan officer and the realtor through an insurance agent, it connects the insurance agent like has never been done before. Mark Miletello Well, I've been obviously part of that process, and I guess to add more to that, what I saw, and again it took you kind of pounding it into me, it from an insurance agent standpoint, typically we're not known as the most tech-savvy people in the world, our industry, and I think you'll laugh and agree at that. You've had that challenge of the first 70, 80 people that have signed up for your program, I think you've had the ...
Transcribe →Recruiting and Launching a Successful Insurance Agency, Matt Harness, Ep. 10
Feb 7, 201800:46:59Tap to summarizeGeneral Agent, Matt Harness, shares how he recruits agents and launches a successful insurance agency. Learn what Matt says holds agents back. View more information at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet, episode 10. Matt Hartness: We are our own worst enemy in what gets in the way of future production. Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together. Managers, coaches, and producers. The very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now, here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager, and your host of Where the Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello: Welcome back to the show. We'd like to thank the listeners for tuning in. We have an exciting show as we always do. We have guests on this show that already with under 10 episodes launched, we have industry gurus. We've had outside talent, and marketing, and speaking, and coaching. We've had new agents. We've had leaders in the industry. I'm just crazy excited here to have a person that I have watched grow in this business from a producer to an assistant, associate general agent, and now has become the leading general agent in one of the top insurance companies in America. One of the oldest, and largest, and most dynamic companies in America. Welcome. Today, we're going to discuss with him recruiting and launching a successful agency. Welcome to the show, Matt Hartness. Matt Hartness: Thanks, Mark. I appreciate you having me today. I look forward to the conversation. Mark Miletello: Man, we got so much to learn from you. I just can't wait to extract it. Matt, I guess in the past, maybe I've mentored you a little bit. Would you admit to that, or no? Matt Hartness: Absolutely, man. I was early in my career, I was calling you or seeing you at various events out and about, picking your brain and asking questions. All along, I would have counted you as one of my mentors through my career, and still, I'd count you as a mentor. Mark Miletello: Well, thank you for that. I don't say that brag or to steal any of your thunder. What I say that too is a great mentor of mine, Garry Kinder, said "Hey, in the first three months, a new person does what you tell them to do. They don't know how to speak, so they speak like you speak. They walk like you walk. Then after that, you start to let them fly a little bit. Then before long, two to three years later typically, they become mentors of yours." That's what I'd like to say about you, Matt, is that you have now arrived at a place where I feel like we mentor each other. You are a mentor of mine, so congratulations on the hard work I know every step of the way, the hard work you've put to become based on the standards that they calculate. Now, I know there are rules here and there. You've become the leading general agent with one of the greatest companies in America, so congratulations on that. Thank you for mentoring me back now, which you have all along. Matt Hartness: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it's been an excellent ride. As we're talking mentors, I could not have done it with many of people and even current teammates that I have now to make it happen. It's been a collaborative of a lot of people to help with the success that I am currently having today. Thank you very much for that. Mark Miletello: Well, I know you're right in the middle of it, and you're a busy person, so thank you for taking the time because I think your perspective is just what I love about this show, that people all across our industry will be able to hear from someone, and really like myself, there was a producer and worked all the way through those different levels to now you're in a management and a leadership role. And so, I think it's going to be very interesting to talk and hear some of the things that you're doing. I'm anxious to hear and learn from it. But, you mentioned some mentors along the way. Would you like to pause for a minute and maybe give some of your mentors' credit? Matt Hartness: Yeah, absolutely. And I definitely want to give credit where credit's due. Mark, right off the bat early in my career, even actually before I started, I was handed a cassette, a CD cassette of books basically with Jack and Garry Kinder, had the Earl Nightingale information in there. And so, I literally took that information and started to just dissect it, take notes on it. And then years later, I got a chance to sit under Garry Kinder in an academy that lasted over the course of a year. So, got to personally interact with him some. And then just here in the last couple years as I was getting into the management, full-time management scene, I went out, and hired, and it was a long story how it came together, but an old, very old 43 years with one of the largest insurance companies in North America, and he had left that company being ranked the number three manager. And so, we struck a deal, and I just said, "Man, I'm ready to learn." For over a year, right after I got into management, I just learned from him and his name is Ron Strombon. He's just been a phenomenal coach. We were even running a meeting today, and he was there right by my side. There are many other people, but I would say that Jack and Garry Kinder, Ron Strombon, and another good friend of mine, who became a good friend is Steve Bramlett. He'd been a mentor of mine for many years. So, a number of people. The list goes on, but those would be three people, along with yourself and Dan Mueller, and a few other guys that just really have ... I just take information and run with it. So, thank you. Mark Miletello: Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting. I just want to see what's been there to mold someone that rises into a position that you. But I've got to tell you this, the calls I get from you, maybe one or two others have really called me consistently asking the questions. What I love about spending time and investing with you, that time is that I know when I ... you're like, Carl, one of my agents. I just know when I spend that time with you, by the questions you ask, you're doing something really special and you take it and you run with it, and you build upon it, and you give that feedback that, "Hey, here's how I made it work." Absolutely. As far as your career though, this shows about industry pros, and you are definitely a professional in this industry now. You've arrived, I can promise you that. Tell me in your own words maybe a little bit about your rise to success, your struggles. Tell us about your history of working up from scratch in this industry. Matt Hartness: Absolutely. Well, I'd have to give my background to pave the way for where I'm at today. I grew up, I was one of six kids, and we didn't have a lot when I was young. So, work ethic was something that I was taught early. Growing up, the idea of running my own little small businesses whether it was mowing yards or just making a buck somewhere, here, there, was important. And so, I quickly ... In high school, sitting down or when I was working, and I'm working with somebody, we're getting paid an hourly rate, and I know that I'm busting my rear. The guy next to me was sitting on the cooler all day. At the end of the day, we make the same amount of money, but we've put in two different levels of effort, I found frustrating. I quickly knew younger in my life that I wanted to be in an industry or in a position that I could get rewarded for my effort. Going to college, one of my dreams, even from a young boy was to live and work on a horse ranch someday. I got to do that. As soon as I got into college during the summer terms, I'd spend time out in Colorado on a horse ranch and would do that in the summers. Then after I ended up graduating from college, I moved out there full-time, was a wrangler. Did that for about a year, realized I couldn't make any money as a ranch hand, loved it, it was my passion, but I decided to move back to my hometown and get into the business world where I could hopefully come back, make some money and then go buy a ranch out the West someday. That's really where my background, and I quickly discovered the insurance business. What attracted me to the insurance business was that it didn't have a cap on my income, it had flexibility. If I wanted to work hard and then play hard, it gave me all that. And so, I started my career and I was an agent for about six years before the company, that I still work with at this time, approached me on becoming an assistant manager. They approached me there just because of some of the success that I was having as an agent. I got a chance to be in the assistant role along with keeping my personal agency. Then as time went on, the company saw that I was doing well there, and then they ended up coming along and asked them if I wanted to step into the full-time management route, of which I ended up taking, and the rest is history. Along that way though, we had a lot of success and hit some various awards, and financially was very rewarded for that as well. It's just been a great ride and something that I truly am grateful for because I know that there are so many other people in a lot of other industries that don't get near the satisfaction that I get out of my own job. Mark Miletello: And I've known you for quite some time, and I've watched your career...
Transcribe →Thinking on Purpose, Morris Sims, Ep. 9
Jan 30, 201800:39:15Tap to summarizeGuest Morris Sims shares why you have to know your "why". Recognizing how purpose drives us can help you finally get to the bottom of your "why" and cause you to excel in business. Thinking on purpose is a must for success. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet, Episode 9. Morris Sims: Figure out what you're real why is. You're going to find out that it is absolutely wrapped in passion, that why drives me to get myself up and out of bed at five o'clock in the morning. Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together, managers, coaches and producers, the very best experts that insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now, here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager and your host of Where the Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello: Welcome to Where the Insurance Pros Meet. I'm your host Mark Miletello. Today, we're going to discuss thinking on purpose, recognizing how purpose drives us. Now, our guest has been on Where the Insurance Pros Meet before discussing his book Practical Influence and how influence affects us. But today, we're excited to having back and share and influence us again regarding another important topic in a salesperson's mindset purpose. Again, he's trained over 80,000 agents, managers. I can't even wrap my brain around the work that he's done in this field. One of our industry's thought leaders and coach, Morris Sims, welcome back to the show. Morris Sims: Mark, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me again. Mark Miletello: Wow. I'm excited to have you again and thanks for coming back. Such a great topic we had last time, so I'm tremendously excited to jump right in this. But before I do, Morris, do you golf at all or no? Do you try? Morris Sims: I tried. At one point in my life, I tried and figured out that every time I hit that little white ball, it would go about 75 yards straight down the fairway and then turn 90 degrees to the right and I had never been able to get past that. My golfing now is at the range with my son having a nice adult beverage while he hits the golf balls. Mark Miletello: Well, that way you can enjoy it, right? You and I the last conversation we had was about my late father. And I remember every time I went with him in course, he was my mentor in the business. He was one of the greats in the industry. He was one of the ... Well I'll tell you he was the number one agent under Combined Insurance with W. Clement Stone. I want to have maybe an entire other show about him one day, but I remember being on the course with him and every time I would swing, he would have like five tips so by the time the end of my game, I would have a terrible swing that we tried ... We didn't practice at all. We just went out on the field and by the end of the game, I was swinging this awkward swing and was mentally ... I couldn't even handle pulling that club back and striking the ball because he had so many tips. Finally, after a while, I'd say, "Look, just quit coaching me," and I think about that and how it relates to insurance and especially new reps that go out there without practicing, without refining their skill and I think they're going to have a par round in the world of sales and that's just not the case, is it, Morris? Morris Sims: No, it's not. It takes a lot of focus and a lot of hard work to get there. The key in my mind is that, well, it does take work. Anything that's worthwhile takes work and this is worthwhile, and it takes some effort, but you can do it. You can do it. It is certainly achievable and has been achieved by thousands and thousands of men and women across the ages. Don't ever give up. It may be difficult to get started but every minute of work that you put into it, I could promise you that. Mark Miletello: Well, and I've read in one of your writings that you said what I've said on the show, "If I can do it, anyone can." And of course, you're being very humble, but I think you're right in the fact that professional insurance agents and related financial services, we come from all walks of life and there are people that I have recruited and trained. And I would look at this individual and say, "Man, that is one ... You're going to be the best agent I've ever brought on board." Then, I've had some that you just sometimes, you cannot tell who wants it bad enough. I think one thing that I've learned is it is a learnable skill. It's those who have maybe this burning desire that we've heard many times, this something driving them, but the information is there. We just must learn it and practice it. At golf, there's no shortage of tips and advice out there to tell us how to be better. Can you start off the show with ...? Our show is about purpose but, Morris, can you start off our show with a tip or an advice that we can maybe improve our game with? Morris Sims: I'll be happy to try, Mark. I think it really has to do with just what we're talking about today, thinking on purpose. That's a line that hit my mind about a year ago and I realized that very few of us sit down and think on purpose. Our thoughts are the result of stimulus and Lord knows there's a lot of stimuli out there today from the telephones that we have in our pocket to the computers, to the books, to the people. You see, or you hear something, and you think about it. When was the last time you sat down to think on purpose about what it is you really want in life? I think that's the key to the whole thing is becoming clear, really crystal clear about what you want and here's the key, Mark. Be clear about what you want and why you want it. As you were saying earlier, you think it's that burning desire that people have that make them successful in this business and I would propose that it's in any business. That really comes back to that "why". Why do you want to do this? Why are you in this business? What's important to you? We'll talk more about this as we go along, but I think that's the best tip I could give you is to stop, sit down, have a piece of paper and pen, think on purpose what is it you want and why you want it. Mark Miletello: Yeah, I guess I can relate to that. We get so busy sometimes that we don't put our purpose out there, why and our focus and maybe in the short term it's to pay our bills. But it needs to be much more than that is what you're saying? Morris Sims: It does. It needs to be a whole lot more than that, and it is a whole lot more than that. But we rarely stop to take the time to figure it out. The other thing that I love to tell folks is that when you get down to the real bottom line when you figure out what you're real why is, you're going to find out that it is absolutely wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion. Wrapped in passion and fueled by emotion. To pay my bills doesn't sound very passionate or emotional, but to provide for my family, a house or a home, a house ... Let's take that one for a moment. To provide for my family a house that they can live in that has a nice backyard for the kids to play in can be very emotional when you stop and add the rest of it to that "why" which is I never had a house to live in. We always lived with my Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jim because dad died early, and mom couldn't afford a house. We lived in apartments after we lived with Aunt Mary and Uncle Jim, and I'm going to get a home and a house for my kids. Now, it's wrapped in passion and fueled with emotion. When I can remember that, it's going to change my behavior. Mark Miletello: Well, I get it. I get it. That's why I wanted to have you back, Morris, is I think you're right on is that rather than focusing on paying our bills or making a sale or this, the why behind it is the purpose. It's what's the purpose of us being a success ... Or just going out there and going into that grind or the trenches as you call it. Yeah, I totally get that and thanks for sharing that. Morris, we had you once before but for a listener that did not catch that series, you maybe share with us your professional history of where you've been and thanks for sharing that personal story and maybe how that shaped your purpose along the way. But I'd love to hear more about your career as well. Morris Sims: I'll be happy to, Mark. It's kind of interesting. I started my career as a chemical engineer after graduating from Auburn University and did that for five years, and I was mediocre. I was okay. I was getting promoted and good things were happening, but it just wasn't any fun. I know some really great engineers, and the guys I was working with were really great people, but we weren't having a whole lot of fun all day long, and you realize that you spend more time with the people you work with than you do with your family sometimes. I wanted to do something that was fun and about that time, my insurance agent came to the house because we had a brand new baby, and I thought, "Gee, you know what? He does look like it could be fun." Sure enough, the recruiter called me, and we went through a six-month recruiting process and eventually, long story short, I became a New York Life agent and was successful doing that for three years, and they said, "Hey, why don't you come over here and train other people to do what you do." I went into management and- Mark Miletello: You rose as one of t...
Transcribe →The Common Denominator of Success, Garry Kinder, Ep. 8
Jan 23, 201800:41:34Tap to summarizeGarry Kinder is back on the show to talk about the common denominator of success. He shares his key industry insights and talks about why you must set and measure goals. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1: Where The Insurance Pros Meet, episode eight. Mark Miletello: Goals are set to be met. Speaker 1: Where The Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together: managers, coaches, and producers. The very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager, and your host of Where The Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello: Welcome to the show. We're glad you joined us. I'm your host, Mark Miletello. Today we have a repeat guest on the show, one of the industry's greatest mentors, coaches, producers. I guess you've been in this industry for six decades now, five to six decades, but a true icon. Mark Miletello: How long has it been? Garry Kinder: Well, I came into this business in 1953 when I was a junior in college. I was at a university where you could get a degree in insurance, and I did that. My bother encouraged me to start selling life insurance when I a junior in college, so that's '53 to 2017. Mark Miletello: Well, that qualifies for six decades, 64 years. Congratulations and welcome back to the show, my mentor and one of my just ... personal friends Garry Kinder, welcome. Garry Kinder: Glad to be back. Mark Miletello: Well Garry, thanks for taking the time to join us. Last show, it was just one of the most exciting times for me to have someone that means so much to me... share. And really what I wanted to do on the last show was dive in and get to know you, and get to know you as a person. It was more about, I think, learning and walking through your life. But one thing that we did touch on a whole lot that I'm glad that you decided to come back, and I hoped that you would, is I really wanted to get in and talk about the things that you do so well, which is mentoring, coaching and teaching. And let's talk about the success and how to be successful of agents. Is that okay with you? Garry Kinder: Sure, sure. Mark Miletello: Garry Garry Kinder: You can ask the questions. Mark Miletello: Go ahead. Garry Kinder: No, you can ask the questions. Mark Miletello: Well, I think one of the first messages that I've read coming into this industry, and I believe maybe even you shared it with me. There's an old speech by Albert E. N. Gray, it's called, The Common Denominator or Success. I think anyone in this business should have, or maybe even knows about that, and really you can probably research it, find it. I think everyone should read it when they enter this business. But the crux of that speech he gave back, I guess ... I think it was, what, 50, 60, 70 years ago? It was a long time. Garry Kinder: Sure. Mark Miletello: The idea was that successful people form the habits of doing things that failures won't do, right? Garry Kinder: That's right. Successful people form the habits ... I'm giving you the exact words that he used. Successful people form the habits of doing the things that failing people don't like to do. This could've been given to students in college. It could've been given to athletes. For an example, students in college, what is a failing student in college, what is it they don't like to do? Mark Miletello: Study, go to class. Garry Kinder: They don't like to study. Go to class and study, that's right. And the ones that are going to class and studying, they don't like it either. But they do it because they have the discipline to do what they ought to do. Now you take athletes ... I've played athletics in high school and college and I've played with some pretty dad gone good people, but they never made it. They never got past the first practice because they were not willing to do the things that failing people don't like to do. And failing athletes don't like to practice. Who in the world would like to practice? They want to play. They just want to go play, but you got to practice. So, the common denominator of success is doing things that failing people don't like to do. Mark Miletello: Well, you've been in this- Garry Kinder: That's true in our business. Mark Miletello: Yeah. I mean you've been in this industry now for six decades, which congratulations. And can't tell you what you mean to this industry and you mean to us out here in the field. And obviously, you've been around a lot of people that have been both successes and failures. So, what is your interpretation of that? In your opinion, what are some of the things in our industry that successful people form the habits of doing? Garry Kinder: Okay, so in our industry the things that the people. First, most people do not like what I'm going to say, I mean that people do. Most people do not like to make phone calls after phone calls after phone calls to referred leads, to friends, to people they're associated with in religion or studying, or whatever. But they don't like to do the things that failing people don't like to do either, and that is they don't like to make phone calls. But the great ones discipline themselves to make calls every week, every day. Now some people turn it over to one or two days a week, and that okay, but the successful ones make the phone calls. They don't like it, but they do it. Mark Miletello: Right. Garry Kinder: Same thing to do with the loser. The loser doesn't like doing it, so it doesn't do it. Mark Miletello: Yeah, I'll tell you ... Well, number one is just making the calls because we know this is a numbers game. It always has been, and it always will be, getting in front of enough people. I think there's a lot of things that go into that but when you're coaching ... and I look back at the times where you've coached me. When you're coaching, what are some of the first things that you focus on in trying to launch an agent to have a successful career in the very beginning? Garry Kinder: Number one, you must memorize scripts, and there again, a lot of people don't want to memorize scripts. I've had people come to me, Mark, and I can' tell you the number of people that have come to me over the years and said, "I don't like ... the script doesn't sound like me." And I said to them, "Well, that's good." And they said, "What do you mean." I said, "What I mean is, if it sounded like you, it wouldn't work." You got to memorize these scripts. Then, the second thing in my opinion, most important ... these are the two most important things that people in our industry need to do, is have good scripts memorized. They sound like you. They're natural as can be, that's number one. Number two is keeping good records. And I'm telling you there's a lot of people in our industry that don't like to keep records. We're watching the World Series right now, do those people keep track of their batting average? Why they calculate it when they hit first ... If they get a single to the right field, when they hit first base, they recalculate what their batting average is up to. Mark Miletello: What their worth is? Garry Kinder: That's right. Mark Miletello: I mean the difference in the worth of a professional athlete can be one minor percentage of their ... Yeah, especially major league baseball, it's once a week the stats come out, all the stats. Yet we start a business and we don't even write down our simple goals, so I think you're right. I knew you were going to say that because that's one of the things you had me do when you mentored me back in the year 2000. You had me keep the stats and you said, "You can't monitor what you don't measure." And so, I started measuring and monitoring those numbers, and those numbers just kept increasing and increasing, and my stats grew better and better. Especially, in professional athletes, that's what they're paid for those stats, right? Garry Kinder: Sure. And that's what we must do. You've used our planning procedure, where you put down what you're going to do every year and then break it down into months and then break it down into weeks and then break it down into days. You want to keep good records. You want to have good scripts. You want to have good records. You want to study. A lot of things you must just discipline yourself to do that the unsuccessful people don't want to do. Mark Miletello: Well, I'll tell you, I'm coming from now, Garry, the management side of things. As you know, most of my career I was an agent. I find it hard when ... and you say when you're recruiting as a manager, you either hired them wrong or trained them wrong, it's all your fault. I agree with that, but sometimes it's hard. I find when it comes to measuring and monitoring, I there's a fine line between an agent wanting to do that for themselves, and a manager demanding those type of activities. Do you find that you being in a management position that ... Is it the agent's job, or is it the manager's job, is the question? Garry Kinder: Well, it's a little bit of both. But Mike, I've had people come to me ... I remember one when I was starting my management career in Bloomington, Illinois. I started in the business in '53, and I started in the management in '57, '58. And I'll never forget it, a young man in Bloomington, he came to me and said, "I don't like to keep records." This was in ...
Transcribe →Crazy Good Talks, Deirdre Van Nest, Ep. 7
Jan 18, 201800:36:42Tap to summarizeHow to give yourself a competitive edge, build your brand and bring in business through speaking. Deirdre Van Nest shares top speaking tips to win customers. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet, episode seven. Deirdre Van Nest: Every time you speak you have the opportunity to attract people to you, to build up your brand, to bring in business, or the opposite. Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together. Managers, coaches, and producers the very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now here's Mark Miletello, a top one percent producer, manager, and your host of Where the Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello: Welcome back to the show. Today is an exciting day, I promised myself and the listeners that when I started this show, in my opinion the best, the greatest platform for really investment reps or insurance agents of Where the Insurance Pros Meet anyone that's in the financial services industry that I would search out and even have brand new agents, veteran agents, top speakers, top thinkers and minds in the industry, so today we have a very, very special guest. We have someone and let me give you a little background before I give you all the goods. As you may or may not know I'm speaking in Lamp in 2018 for Gamma as a multiple line speaker and I fly in to Chicago and right before I'm going into my rehearsal where they do provide a professional speech coach I'm fortunate enough to sit next to the next speaker that arrived a little bit early and just so happens she is a professional speech coach. To me that was very lucky to build a quick friendship the few minutes we had together I knew this individual was special, I knew that she was on it and I invited her to critique and to come in and watch me, which they didn't really allow but I forced it. I want to welcome a very special guest to the show that in a few short minutes I just really felt could really help our industry in a way, welcome Deirdre Van Nest to the show. Deirdre Van Nest: Aw thank you, Mark. Mark Miletello: Deirdre you're the creator of Crazy Good Talks the Blueprint, a system that teaches financial and insurance professionals how to become crazy good speakers so that they can bring in business and build their brands using speaking. I mean I didn't really know what all that meant until I met you and within a few short minutes, you're molding me into something that's doing a lot better job at what I'm attempting to do. Welcome to the show, I'm excited to have you and what you do for our listeners here. Deirdre Van Nest: I'm excited to be here and it's been a pleasure to help you. You are a quick student. Mark Miletello: What does that mean? Are there some that are not? Deirdre Van Nest: Some are not, yeah. Yes, you are. Mark Miletello: Well thank you and like I said I just realized you're very special. Can you tell me a little bit about ... tell the listener a little bit about your background and maybe they'll get a sense for maybe what I've found in you? Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah you know what I first loved to do is talk for a moment about why I care about helping the industry, particularly when it comes to speaking. I firmly believe that every person, and then this is regardless of what you do for a living, but every person unless we develop a skill set of becoming a compelling speaker, the type of speaker Mark who can get other people to sit up and listen and act we will never truly reach our full potential. I'll never forget, I used to be in a networking group where ... you know those networking groups where you have to a 60 or 30 second commercial every week? Mark Miletello: Yep. Deirdre Van Nest: Ever been a part? Okay. I was in this networking group and every week I was with the same people and people would get up and they'd speak for 60 seconds and there were certain people where as soon as that person stood up everybody tuned out and it really hurt my heart, it really bothered me, because as I got to know these people I thought, well you know that person's really good at what they do and that person really cares about the people in room, but they're not conveying who they are and what they do in a way that gets other people to sit up and listen and want to take action. It didn't matter if they were an A-plus attorney or an A-plus financial adviser or A plus this or that if they're a B minus or C plus speakers it was hurting their career. Does that make sense? Mark Miletello: No absolutely and I think I'm learning more about you every time we meet and talk, but I guess what you do helps ... I mean you even said attorneys, I guess attorneys do a lot of public speaking in the courtroom and things like that. How do you help ... I mean what industries do you find yourself helping most and how did you end up really relating and now that you're a speaker at Lamp of course in front of every general manager, general agent across all boards of financial services and insurance. I mean how did you really connect with our industry? Deirdre Van Nest: Yeah that's a great question so there's a couple of touch points. When I first hung my shingle out in 2008 I just started speaking everywhere I could and the professionals that raised their hands the most saying, "Hey, we're interested in you. We want what you're doing, we want you're helping. We're financial and insurance professionals." In one sense I fell into these industries, these professions, but it's interesting Mark as I've dug deeper I've really developed a love for this industry, for these professions, and for the people in it. As I sat back, and I started thinking okay I know I feel like I've sort of fell into this, but why do I stay here and why do I love it, and why do I feel a passion around it and why is that pretty much the sole focus of anything I do from an outbound perspective? It circled back to this, and you know this you heard my story about when I was 10 years old my mom was killed in a car accident and Mark I literally was kissing her goodbye one moment for what I thought was the night and within four minutes she was gone. Mark Miletello: Yeah. Deirdre Van Nest: My dad was in the car too, we were really blessed that he didn't die, it was touch and go with him and he was out of work for several months and it took him about a year to recover from all his injuries. What that did for me was I lost my innocence in the sense that I realized from that experience and I realized early in that life can change in a snap. As I got older I became a very strong advocate for proper financial planning. Mark Miletello: Right. Deirdre Van Nest: I was the person at 30 who got pregnant with my first child and instead of running off to the fun little store to pick out outfits and furniture I'm dragging my husband to our adviser and making sure we have enough life insurance, I'm dragging him to our attorney making sure all the guardianship and beneficiary stuff is taken care of. Most people don't think like that and I didn't realize that until I started talking to my friends about it. They're like, "That wouldn't have crossed my mind." Mark Miletello: Yeah. Well, thank you for- Deirdre Van Nest: And I was like, "It doesn't?" Mark Miletello: Thank you for sharing your personal story with the listeners and I know that's tough, but I see now that you have a passion for what our products do and with your expertise- Deirdre Van Nest: Yes, I do. Mark Miletello: With you being the guru, you are the foremost thinker of how to speak and a teacher in that realm I mean I do see that passion come out and so I'm excited that you're connected. I'm sorry that that happened of course, but I'm excited that you're connected with our industry and it kind of leads me to another question that kind of left me thinking after meeting you is if I'm not giving a speech, a public speech on stage, would I really need someone like Deirdre Van Nest to coach me and help me and I think the answer yes and I think you've kind of ... I was able to listen, I wanted to sit through your whole rehearsal and I wasn't able to do that because of my flight, but I did catch one little, and I'm going to try to squeeze that out of you for our listeners, one little tip that you were giving maybe a couple tips, but I do think that there's some validity to increasing your ability speak, finding your voice can help you even if you're not giving a stage public speaking event. Correct? Deirdre Van Nest: Absolutely. This is where I feel like I'm hoping the profession will veer towards and start changing is that you speak at seminars, right? That's kind of what everyone thinks right now in the industry is, "Oh speaking is seminars," and I would like to broaden the perspective and offer that speaking is anytime you're in public. That means outside of your own home opening your mouth and talking to let's say two, three, or more people. Mark Miletello: Right. Deirdre Van Nest: Because every time you speak you have the opportunity to attract people to you, to build up your brand, to bring in business or the opposite, to push people away or just have them be neutral to you. We are in what I believe the communication age, there are so many people vying to be heard and so to have a skill set where you can cut thro...
Transcribe →The Power of Influence in Sales, Morris Sims, Ep. 6
Jan 9, 201800:42:28Tap to summarizeAuthor, Morris Sims shares how to create understanding with clients. Learn the power of influence in sales. View more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet, Episode 6. Morris Sims: What we do, Mark, as insurance agents, we change people's lives. We change people's lives for the better every day. Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together: managers, coaches, and producers, the very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager, and your host of Where the Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello: Welcome to Where the Insurance Pros Meet. I'm your host, Mark Miletello. Today we're going to discuss influence, understanding influence, increasing your influence, and principles of influence. Of course, in sales, we use our influence on either leading a team to increase production or as an individual just to increase sales. Influence is in everything we do. Our guest is an expert on the subject. He has trained over 80,000 agents and managers. He's written a book called Practical Influence. Highly sought-after leader and coach. I love welcoming Morris Sims to the show. Welcome, Morris. Morris Sims: Well, thanks, Mark. I really appreciate it. Mark Miletello: Glad having you and I'm excited to jump into this. You know, Morris, I kind of designed this show to run alongside a format of, and I gravitate toward, professional athletes. Many times, I was watching Major League Baseball this weekend and I was thinking the practice, from an early childhood they are practicing their skill. Even when they're late in their career, they still practice almost year around and honing their skills. They must have a coach. They have coaches throughout their entire career. I think there's a lot of similarities. What my goal in going into management was to bring that same understanding that we need, our clients really need us to be professionals out in the field. As we're recording this show, Major League Baseball is in the heat of the season. Teams are jockeying for the positions. But, Morris, professionals, they're in the spotlight, right? I would say they have a huge influence over others. Correct? Morris Sims: Oh, I think so, Mark. I think there are a lot of different principles of influence academically that are not necessarily the same principles that I have in the book, but rather maybe a little more academic principle that they've studied over the years in universities. The kind of influence that we're talking about there is the charisma and the collegial, if you will maybe, type of influence. It has to do with seeing someone and wanting to be like them. "I want to be as good as Dak Prescott. I want to be as good as," et cetera. Mark Miletello: Right. That's what drives me sometimes is watching others win awards. You know? Influence affects us. Aren't those major league athletes, aren't they influenced by others as well? Morris Sims: Oh, I think we all are. We all allow ourselves to be influenced by others around us all the time. I guess it's what you would call more of kind of influence: "I want to be like Mike. I want to be able to achieve the same things that Mark has achieved. I want to make MDRT." All those kinds of things are the kind of influence that comes along with other people. We're influenced by their lives, by what they've made of their lives, and we want to be able to be as good as they are. Mark Miletello: You hit it perfect. I want to be like Mike. That type of influence really still today, we know what that means, and they did a good job marketing that. Right off the bat, we're jumping into this, but, Morris, we're going to put you up to bat at first. We want you to step up there and hit us a home run on the first pitch and give us a professional tip right off the bat that can help us. Do you have a professional tip for us? Morris Sims: A professional tip. I'll come up with one for sure, Mark. You know, something I've been working on lately, let me just put it this way, folks. Social media is not dead. It's like what Mark Twain said, "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." Well, social media is far from dead. In fact, it is something that I believe we all should be very, very involved in because there are a lot of people out there and there are a lot of people going through that all the time.But here's the deal. You and I are experts in our own business in what we do. You all are experts in the insurance and financial services arena. You know more about insurance and financial services than a guy on the street knows, for sure. Now today, certainly with a Google search, you can learn a whole lot, but you still are much more expert in that than the average guy on the street. Work within your expertise, on your area of expertise, and hire a marketing professional to do your social media for you, or at least set you up to do your social media.The professional tip is one that I've worked on a lot, and I hope we get to talk about it some more, is focusing on what you do best and getting other people to do the things that are not in your area of expertise. You're an insurance expert and chances are you're not a marketing expert. Let's get a marketing expert involved. Mark Miletello: Perfectly said. We will have more time to talk about it. We're excited to dive more into it. Before we jump right into that, I want to know a little bit more about you, Morris. I've read up on you. I've read your book. I've found some articles. I see all the coaching that you've done and the great career that you've had, but I'm just having a hard time understanding how a chemical engineer with a master's degree in science, those aren't usually the prerequisites for having a successful 30-year career in this business. What were you going to be at first and how did you transition into this wonderful industry? Morris Sims: It's like I thought, "What were you thinking?" Yeah, I know. It makes for a really good story, though. I'll tell you that. After five years of being an engineer, I was okay. I was not a walk-on-water engineer. I was good, but I wasn't excellent. I didn't see myself becoming excellent. Frankly, I wasn't having any fun. I wanted to do something that was fun. I wanted to be recognized for the work that I was doing. I wanted to be able to have some control over my life. About that time, my agent came over and we looked at buying some more life insurance because we just had a child. I looked at what he was doing and how he did it and I thought, "You know, that might be fun." I went through the interview process and became an agent with New York Life. My life changed overnight. It really, really did. I've had more fun over the last 30 years than I ever did as an engineer. I've had the opportunity to work with some of the best in the business. I've had the opportunity to meet people, and go places, and do things that I would never have had as an engineer working in a chemical plant or sitting behind a desk designing pumping systems. It would not have happened. It turned out well in the long haul, but at the time I wanted to do something that was fun, Mark. This looked like it was going to be a lot more fun. Again, as I said, I have a lot more control over what I do and what I make than I was as an engineer, as an employee. Mark Miletello: We're sure glad that you did. Thinking about influence, and freshly reading your book, I guess, everything I'm thinking now, and one thing is that agent that came out to work with you on life insurance must have done a pretty good job or had some pretty good influence on you. Morris Sims: He did. It was interesting. He did what I guess we always trained our agents to do. If someone expresses an interest, you immediately defer to your manager because the recruiters are the guys that really know what they're doing when it comes to that kind of thing. That's what this gentleman did. He referred me to his manager. His name, just as an aside, is kind of cute, or funny at least. His name was Ernest Gordon, but everybody called him Flash. He was Flash Gordon. He did a great job of sharing with me how I could be in control of my life, how could I be in business for myself, but not by myself. With the backup provided in his team and the team at the company, we were able to find a way to get out there and go sell some insurance, which we did. That was fun. I enjoyed it. To this day, my son chides me that I didn't stay in the world of being an agent, and why in the world did I ever go into management? But the management turned out well for me, too, I guess. It worked out in the long haul all three ways. Mark Miletello: Yeah. Yeah, just I've been there. You and I spoke last week. There's a lot of similarities we have together. I really looked forward to having you on the show because of that. I was an agent as well. I don't know. I just think sometimes individuals are led to help and work with others. My gosh, you must be one of the leaders in this country of working with agents. Looking back over your career with literally tens of thousands, almost 100,000 or more, of mentees and the positions that you held with really one of the world's top life insurance carriers, and you must have met all the greats in the industry, but what are you most proud of...
Transcribe →The Great Garry Kinder - A True Insurance Industry Icon, Ep. 5
Jan 9, 201800:48:44Tap to summarizeGarry Kinder shares how successful agents form the habits of doing the things people who fail don't like to do and won't do. Learn why activity should be your primary focus. View more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1: 'Where the Insurance Pros Meet,' episode five. Garry Kinder: The one thing you can control is activity. Speaker 1: 'Where the Insurance Pros Meet' is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together. Managers, coaches, and producers, the very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business, to have your most successful year ever. Now, here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager, and your host of 'Where the Insurance Pros Meet.' Mark Miletello: Welcome to 'Where the Insurance Pros Meet.' I'm your host, Mark Miletello. Today, we have on the show a true icon in the insurance and financial services industry. Our guest has won more awards, touched more lives, mentored more agents, associated with more companies, written more books, and had over six decades in the insurance and financial services. I could talk half probably the entire show of trying to give a proper introduction to our guest, but I know him personally as a friend. I really think that a personal story he would appreciate more. I met our guest 17 years ago. I came from a prior company where I was top three in that company. I had sold 30,000 of life premium back in 2000. When I made a sideways move to a new company, that was the bottom of the barrel of life. I realized that there was a bigger world out there. I was struggling to figure out how in the world could a multiple line agent do more than 25,000 of life production. I was lucky enough, fortunate enough, to be invited to ... I guess at the time, our guest was being ... It was kind of a study group that the company was seeing could he really affect agents enough to hire him on as a mentor for our company. I was invited to drive to Baton Rouge. I think it was six or eight class session. Garry Kinder: Yup. Mark Miletello: After that meeting, my production personally went to MDRT for three consecutive years after that meeting. All the lives that you've touched, all the agents that you've touched, the clients that you've touched, all roads kind of lead back, and all the greats that I've talked to. Personally, for me, I want to welcome my mentor and one of the greats in the industry. I like to call him the great Garry Kinder. Welcome, Garry. Garry Kinder: Well, it's my pleasure, Mark, to be with you. I remember those days over in, I believe it was Louisiana. Wasn't it? That we met? Mark Miletello: That's right, that's right. Garry Kinder: Yeah. Mark Miletello: In Doug Jones' office. Garry Kinder: I remember those days. Yeah, I remember that. I guess we did have six or seven sessions. We had a ... That session had a great impact on you, and you've become a tremendous performer. I'm always glad to hear you talk about what happened back there in Louisiana. That's great stuff. Mark Miletello: Well ... Garry Kinder: Go ahead. Mark Miletello: Well, and you've always remembered that session. Someone that has taught hundreds of classes a year, how do you remember? How do you look back and every time we talk and we meet, you remember that? I know you went on to have a great career mentoring with my company at the time. I don't know, you just have the ability, I guess, to really ... remember that class, those people, that situation. Maybe it's all of them, maybe you just have a great memory. Garry Kinder: Well, I do have ... I was blessed as a young kid with memory. I could remember things. I'll never forget going to a Dale Carnegie course. The very first evening, they said, "We want to go around and have everybody introduce themselves." We did that. Then they pulled this on us. They said, "Now, who here know the names of all the people that stood up and told you their name, and where they're from? How many of you are ready to tell us what their names were?" I went around the room and I think I knew every first name except one. That was the first session of Dale Carnegie, and they gave me ... Of course, they give away prizes and that. The first prize was the Dale Carnegie book. I've always been blessed with ... which helps you in this business. Mark Miletello: Wow. Garry Kinder: Remembering names. Mark Miletello: No wonder, no wonder. Well, that explains it. I'm sure you went on to be a leader in that class. I would have given anything to have been in that class with you. Garry Kinder: Yeah, yeah. Mark Miletello: Garry, let's break for some industry news quick. Garry Kinder: Okay. Mark Miletello: Studies show 60% of household's own life insurance. 34% say they want to buy more. Now Garry, the last 100 appointments I've been on, not one of them have had the right amount of insurance or the right plans, the right type of plans, to meet their own needs and goals. I believe that everyone out there is a prospect right now in this day and time. Garry Kinder: I believe it because not only are you doing that and what you've said here about these numbers from and so forth, that that's all true stuff and it's well researched. ... What is happening, and I'll add another thing to what you said, and that is that there are fewer agents ... and there are fewer agencies than there were say, let's say 10, 15 years ago. Mark Miletello: Right. Garry Kinder: The opportunity for people coming into the industry is just unbelievable. The opportunity is tremendous. Now, they must go through a period of time of being taught and learning, and all that. Some learn faster than others, but there are fewer agents. There are fewer companies. Mark Miletello: Right. Well, and it's ... I'm excited to have you on this show. As you speak, all these memories pop up into my mind of what you taught me. One of those was accountability of also tracking, and keeping my numbers. I had never done that until then. Yeah, I think they do have much more challenges. Of course, every generation ... every decade probably says that. It's just challenging as any new agent in any time that you start in this industry. It is. If it was easy, then everyone would do it, and everyone would make a ton of money. Garry Kinder: Yeah. Mark Miletello: But you're right, it's a great opportunity in the fact that there are fewer agents now. They must break through those first couple tough years, don't they? Garry Kinder: That's really true. That's really true. As you look at the agencies and the companies, there are fewer agencies, but they're bigger. Mark Miletello: They're bigger. Garry Kinder: There are fewer companies, but they're bigger, but there still is a phenomenal opportunity for veterans in the business and for neophytes in the business. It's just a great time to be in the business. Mark Miletello: Well, we're going to- Garry Kinder: Great time. Mark Miletello: Well, thank you. We're going to jump into that, but first, let's get into professional strategies. Garry, this show has a format that follows closely professional sports; and mainly because I believe ... First, it's fun. I also believe that the industry professionals in our industry have much in common with great athletes, with the practice, with the training, with the mentorship, and the coaching. To kick off this show, let's talk a little bit about football first. Garry Kinder: Okay. Mark Miletello: The first book I ... One of the first books I've read in the industry had you, your brother Jack, and Roger Staubach on the front cover, called 'Winning Strategies in Selling.' Tell us about ... Garry Kinder: Okay. Mark Miletello: Since we're going to go with a football theme, tell us how'd you get Roger Staubach on the front cover? Garry Kinder: Well, we moved to Dallas, Texas, the exact same year that Roger came out of the service and moved to Dallas. We were very active in FCA, Fellowship of Christian Athletes. The two of us got to know each other really quick. Believe it or not, he had young kids and he ended up having five children, I believe. Back when he was here, he had two or three small children. I had a swimming pool in my backyard. He did not have a swimming pool in his backyard. He was a rookie ... and wasn't making that much money. Back in those days, 1969, 1970, the players weren't being paid like they are today. At any rate, he brought his kids over with a swimming teacher to teach his ... in my pool, taught people how to ... taught his children how to swim. We got to know each other quite well that way. We would ... I did a lot of work with him at the Cowboys. That's back when I did the chapels for the Cowboys, for Landry and for Staubach, anything where he was playing. We just became very, very close friends. We are still to this day. The reason ... that ... some athletes do so well in the real estate business and in the insurance business, ... and Staubach did both. You take the things you did on the playing field and you use them in the business practice. They're very similar. Everything is similar. You got to practice. You got to believe. You got to stick with it. You got to have goals, that kind of stuff. That all made sense to him. Then, so we ... My brother Jack and I, we asked him, "Look, we want to write a book, and we want it to be ... Every book we've written had been geared to the insurance industry. We might like to be ... We'd like to write one that's generic, that every salesperso...
Transcribe →Billy McDougall's Life Insurance Disscussion, Ep. 4
Jan 9, 201800:33:25Tap to summarizeLife Insurance expert Billy McDougall, takes us on a journey that can completely evolve your life insurance business. Learn why questions are the key to success. View more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet, Episode Four. Billy McDougall: He said, "Your credibility, your professionalism, all of that is going to be defined not by the things that you say, not by the things that you prove in terms of your product knowledge, but by the quality of your question." Speaker 1: Where the Insurance Pros Meet is a Podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together. Managers, coaches, and producers. The very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now, here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager, and your host of Where the Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello: Welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. Today is an exciting day. I think most of you are going to gravitate toward our guest that we have because he is an agent. He's an agent who started from scratch. One of my first hires as I went into management 10 years ago. He started really from the medical sales industry and transitioned into the insurance industry. To be able to watch him from day one of his career has been a real treat. He's led my agency. He's been a leader in the company. I believe you're going to love to hear from our guest, Billy McDougall. Billy McDougall: Hey, Mark. Thanks for having me. Mark Miletello: Well, I'm excited to be with you and a couple reasons why. One is you are an agent that I've watched come into this business from an outside industry. You've started from scratch. I've watched the progression of going and you learning different styles. You've learned from several people in the industry, and you've continued to evolve until now. You have one of the most dynamic and powerful life insurance discussions I believe I've ever seen. I'd like to think I played a part in helping you get there, but I'm excited to see the success you're having. You've won back to back Agent of the Years, as well as you are a fireman and you risk your life right now in the California wildfires to protect us, to thank you for your service and welcome to the show. Billy McDougall: Thanks, Mark. Appreciate it. Yeah, I do want to extend a thank you to you. You laid the groundwork for me in this industry. You helped me get my peanut or meet me and just figure out what it meant to have discussions, meaningful discussions with clients. You've also helped me to reach out within the industry and find the very best and brightest and to try and [inaudible 00:02:46] my discussion even more, so thank you for everything you've provided for myself and for my family. Mark Miletello: Well, thank you. Of course, you're my client, so thank you. Having you part of the test pilot group with this entirely new life discussion ... Tell us first before we get into what you're doing now, and using you as the Guinea pig and the test pilot of really transforming and evolving our life discussion. Now, what we're basically launched on VanMark.life. Tell us a little bit about when you got started. Some of the struggles you've had, some of the successes you've had in discussing life insurance. Billy McDougall: Honestly, when I started, I didn't really know much of anything about life insurance. I was joining what I thought was just a PNC company and then it was made very apparent that we were primarily a life insurance company, and that honestly kind of scared me a little bit because you must own car insurance by law. You must have home insurance to carry a mortgage, but you don't have to have life insurance, and I was fearful of how it would be received by clients. I did, I guess I grew in my knowledge of it. Really embraced and just fall in love with the product, and the need that we instill in families. I'd say that I started by just trying to establish a level of professional knowledge with my clients. I think if you go back and listen to the types of discussions that I had with clients when I first started, they were effective relative to product knowledge. Mark Miletello: Right. Billy McDougall: They weren't super effective relative to generating a discussion. They were still very much one-sided. I believe I probably did 90% of the talking and the client only did 10%, and hopefully, I was able to stay in their good graces long enough to let me finish through that discussion. Mark Miletello: Oh no, I agree. As a matter of fact, I think I still have that recording where you came into my office eight or nine years ago and delivered a mock, not presentation, of course. But at the time, I was your only liaison to the industry, so you were basically duplicating my process and maybe a couple others that I introduced you to. I think that's kind of the way we've all been taught, or maybe we feel like even, regardless of the way we've been taught or not, it's so much information we feel like we must get through within an hour, which ends up sometimes becoming two hours that we feel like we have to talk 90% of the time. Right? Billy McDougall: Correct. Yes. Honestly, part of that for me was when I first started, I thought that I had to legitimize myself in being a professional in the eyes of the client. I believe that that was done by showing them how extensive my product knowledge was. Mark Miletello: Right. Billy McDougall: That lends itself to a presentation-style discussion. Mark Miletello: Well, when you say "presentation-style discussion", expand on that and tell us what that means to you. Billy McDougall: Well, I think I was very effective in getting across points. Whether or not those were received is a completely different aspect, in whether they're received in the way that they want to be received. It's kind of like, what do they say? You throw a spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. That's how those presentations were. Though they were effective, and I was able to sell life insurance with those, they were a lot of work. It was trying for myself to keep the clients engaged. I had to constantly battle and do work against their attention spans, relative to what I thought was hopefully important in their lives, instead of me really having a good discussion where they're doing 90% of the talking. They're engaging me, and we're addressing things that are relevant to the first and foremost, relative to these products. Mark Miletello: When you say "presenting", I think what I heard you say is you feel like when you call it a "presentation" or you're presenting to the client, you feel like 90% of the time you're talking because you're trying to express a level of professionalism through your product knowledge, through the extensive details of the bells and whistles of the product, right? Billy McDougall: Yeah. Mark Miletello: Great analogy. You're throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. What that means is you're spewing this product knowledge so much that every now and then, something sticks. But you know what? You did a pretty darn good job of it. You came right in, won trips, won Agent of the Year, led my agency for three or four years in a row. What was so bad about it if it works? Billy McDougall: It wasn't so bad. In fact, it was tremendously effective. But it made it very hard for me to consider a change. In fact, there are national speakers that I had heard multiple times, multiple years in a row before I made a commitment to do something different. I can't even honestly tell you what triggered that desire to make a change, but I finally did. I took a leap of faith and I completely rearranged my ... The presentation is gone. It's not a presentation at all. Everything now is a discussion with the client, where I'd say they're doing at least 50% of the talking. On a good day, much, much more. It's much more engaging for them. It's much more specific for what they care about, and it's much more effective in terms of making sure you have a good product then because ethically then for me, ultimately, I only want what's best for the client, and their opinion is the one that matters. If I'm giving them a presentation, how am I meeting their needs? I'll tell you, I've had just so much fun in changing this into a true discussion, helping them organize their thoughts around important concepts like life insurance, financial planning, based on helping them by leading them through a sequence of questions that are relevant to those things to understand what matters to them. Mark Miletello: Well, I heard you say something in there. A strange word to our industry in the form of meeting with a client, but you said you have fun with clients. I remember when you and I were on the cuff, and it's okay to say it. You and I were together, following Van Miller, and Van Miller and I, of course, have developed VanMark.life, which you were instrumental in helping us. At this point, I don't know who comes up with what. I'm sure it all stems back from Van, and Van says it stems even further back to the mentors in his. Yes, whether it's Gary Kinder, or Tom Hegna, or Brian McKnight, or Van Miller, or all those things, I do recall, and it's been about two years for myself, so I'm trying to put the timeline together. But you and I decided at some point that we had to start with the first step of calling our new, evolved presentation, if yo...
Transcribe →Breaking Out In A Competitive Marketing Place, Richard C. Weylman, Ep. 3
Dec 18, 201700:52:06Tap to summarizeToday's episode is on breaking out in a competitive marketing place. Richard Weylman is a highly sought-after marketing consultant in the financial services industry. Learn more at MarkMiletello.com. Note: "Where The Insurance Pros Meet" is an audio podcast and is meant for the ear. A transcript of the audio is provided for referencing a particular section or for you to follow along. Listen to the episode to get the most out of our show. We use both speech recognition software and human transcribers to create the transcripts so they may contain errors. If you're going to quote us in print, please be sure to check the corresponding audio. TRANSCRIPT Announcer Where The Insurance Pros Meet, Episode 3. Richard Weylman Remember, relationships drive revenue, and if you want to grow a practice today, they want you to relate. Announcer Where The Insurance Pros Meet is a podcast that brings the greatest talent in the world together: managers, coaches, and producers; the very best experts the insurance and financial services industry has to offer. Get ready to change the way you do business to have your most successful year ever. Now, here's Mark Miletello, a top 1% producer, manager, and your host of Where The Insurance Pros Meet. Mark Miletello Today we're going to discuss breaking out in a competitive marketing place. We have a very, very special guest on the show today. He's a highly sought-after marketing consultant in the financial services industry. He's the author of two best-selling books, Opening Closed Doors: Keys To Reaching Hard-To-Reach People, and a recent read of mine, The Power of Why: Breaking Out in a Competitive Marketplace. This book has been endorsed with names like Donald J. Trump, yes, that's now President Trump, Christopher Forbes, Richard S. Bernstein, Milton Pedraza, founder of an online university, the Weylman Center for Excellence in Practice Management. By the way, his work has been described by Christopher Forbes of Forbes magazine as brilliant, and I personally agree. I've been following and learning from our guest for a decade now, and I'm honored and excited to welcome Richard C. Weylman to the show. Welcome, Richard. Richard Weylman Thank you, Mark. Great to be with you. I appreciate the privilege of being part of the programming Where The Insurance Pros Meet. Thank you. Mark Miletello And thank you. Richard, were you able to catch the Mayweather/McGregor fight? Richard Weylman Oh, absolutely. I'm a huge boxing fan. Although a lot of people thought it was going to be for show only, I thought it was very interesting. I thought that McGregor handled himself well given the fact it was way outside of his, how shall we say, his sweet spot. But it was really an interesting fight. I think that it was truly once in a lifetime. Mark Miletello Yeah, it's neat. I love the way the announcers even were questioning in the early rounds. It's funny. I like to start my show with a Mayweather jab, followed by a straight overhand right, which he implemented so well, but knock out information that will immediately help our listeners win in the arena of marketing and sales in the insurance and financial industry. Now, Richard, I know someone who paid $5,000 for a ticket. I personally paid $100 to see the fight. And others that I've talked to cannot even believe people were paying this much to see this fight. So, I think there's a lesson here. As a marketing coach, I can't help but relate this to consumers of our products. I guess the question is, regarding our products in the insurance and financial industry, products that may do the same thing but are priced differently, how is it that agents or reps stay in business unless they're the lowest price? I think you're the perfect person to ask that question too. Richard Weylman Wonderful question. It's a perfect analogy. Why would somebody pay $5,000 or $100 to be able to see that fight? In the end, there are a couple of things to always consider. Why do people, and why are people willing to pay more? If they can afford it, why are they willing to pay more than, let's say, the low-cost provider. It really gets down to a couple of very fundamental things. Number one, it's the value that they place, in the case of insurance, on the recommendations that are being made. If you do a great discovery and really uncover, hear me clearly now, the emotional issues they're dealing with, not just, "I need more life insurance to protect my family," but really be able to tell a story of delivering a death benefit, to tell the story of why disability insurance is important, to be able to tell the story from your own perspective, that engages people emotionally, and when people are emotionally engaged, the value is far beyond just the product, but it also brings value to the relationships they have. The important thing here is value is created. Cost is a function of value. If you expand the value, cost becomes a minimal or a minor issue. That's one. Two, the second piece of that puzzle is they really want to feel that their life insurance agent, or advisor, use any phrase you want, is really a resource for people like them. What do I mean by that? I mean, they want to feel comfortable. You're not just there to create a transaction, but you're there to be able to help them, more holistically, if you will, with all their financial issues. Now, you may not be cross-licensed. You may not be able to sell investments, but you certainly can be the individual that they can call when they have a financial question, and through strategic partnerships you can then place yourself in their mind as a resource to them so that they see the value you bring is not just the product, not just the platform, but the insight that you have and the specialist in your firm that you can deliver to them to help them to get their financial life in balance. Is that helpful? Mark Miletello Absolutely. I mean, I want to say, "If we could bottle that up and sell it, or give it away," but you really have. You have in everything you've done, in your books, in the classes that I've studied for 10 years, and you've done it with the Weylman Institute, so you really have bottled it up. But there are so many nuggets in what you just said. What I think, Richard, is I think people can afford what they want to afford as well. When you think about the value the promoters built in the right marketing campaign, it's numbers that they calculate, and they feel is their worth, not the cheapest that they could do it for. Right? I guess from the south I have a different perspective. I've seen a $5,000 pickup truck driving down the road with a $20,000 ATV in the back, so it reminds me that when you want something bad enough you find a way to afford it. It becomes part of your budget. Richard Weylman That's right. As I said, the cost is a function of value. I think it's important too for insurance, particularly with DOL and all the things, you know, there's all this noise out there. And people are like, "Oh, fee disclosure, or commission disclosure." Part of the problem, frankly, Mark, is that insurance agents and advisors, even on the financial advisory side, when they're asked ... and I asked an insurance agent recently who is a friend of my wife, and I said, "So, how do you get paid?" "Oh, I get paid on commission." Wow. And I ask advisors all the time, "So, what kind of a practice do you run?" "Oh, I run a fee-based practice." Well, either one of those statements, if you say you run a fee-based practice, my first question must be, "What's the fee?" If I say, "How do you get paid?" And you say, "I get paid in commission." I'll say, "So what's your commission?" My advice to everyone listening to this discussion today is very simple. If somebody says, "So, how do you get paid?" "Well, I get paid for the recommendations that I make that you accept to protect your family." Mark Miletello Love it. Absolutely. Well, you know, like I said, it seems like everything that you say, and when I'm reading your book, and listening to you, you add one little twist to things that people say that brings so much value. You're right. If someone asked me today how I got paid I would have said the same thing, because that's ... But that makes a lot of sense, and thank you for sharing that. Richard Weylman You're welcome. Mark Miletello We've kind of talked about the pinnacle of boxing, so as one of the leading minds, I believe, in professional marketing, Richard, right off the bat let's give the listener a professional tip or tool. Is there a tip or tool or a piece of technology that you can share with the listener that is either transforming your business or could help transform theirs? Richard Weylman Well, not a self-promotion. Obviously, I've been producing coursework for many years. We're a research-based consulting firm first. We've done a lot of discovery of what's going on with the consumer, and that's really our sweet spot, it is understanding how to engage the consumer, and, more importantly, convert them into a client. Our online platform The Weylman Center has allowed us now to bring 41 courses that used to be on DVD, et cetera, it's allowed me to upgrade all of that and put that in the marketplace. It's WeylmanCenter.com, and an agent or an advisor can sign up for $27 a month, have access to 41 different courses, hot links to every single market in the United States right at the local level. But setting that aside for the moment, because we've really designed that for people that really want to build a practice of distinction. I think the large picture here is this. We've just concluded doing research with 350 affluent individuals. What does that mean? Well, we have about 7,000 agents and advisors that belong to our online university. We do a lot of webinars, we have masterminds, it's a very interactive site with a lot of people, they're taking courses, they have all the tools th...
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