3 Common Mistakes Costing You Thousands

Hey guys.

Hi.

Hi.

All right, I’ll see you guys. So guys, good morning. It’s Alberto Riehl’s Thursday 10:05 am. You know, it’s pretty cool. Today I get to spend more time with my kids in a day than I used to in an entire week. So if you don’t have your life insurance business virtual just yet, it’s something you definitely want to think about for the future.

Today, I want to talk about three common mistakes that I’ve found that most insurance guys make. You know, anybody trying to sell more life insurance, financial advisers, insurance brokers, wealth managers, whatever you want to call yourself. Man, our company today, we’re so blessed that we’re talking to about 40 agents a day. And when I say talking to, we have 40 appointments, 40 scheduled strategy sessions every single day. We had 42 yesterday. That’s over 800 a month. Every single month right now, 800, and it’s going up every single month. One of the best things about this is that we get awesome feedback from agents and brokers that are out in the field. They tell us what they’re running into, what their problems are, and there’s three common things that keep coming up that I thought, “Man, this is costing these guys thousands and thousands of dollars every single month.” So here we go.

So three things. Number one is not knowing your audience. The average insurance guy is contracted with 12 different insurance companies, offers about 50 different products, and guess what? Doesn’t use about 80% of them. So why would you do that? The thing is, they have fear of missing out. You don’t know your audience. Even a very experienced agent … We had somebody yesterday we spoke to with 30 years in the business. Asked, “What’s your ideal client look like?” And they gave us very basic, fundamental demographics. That’s it. We’re talking age, married, makes $250,000 a year, own a home. Guys, that’s not knowing your client. That’s not knowing your client.

There’s something today called psychographics, which we can do online, where we know the behavior, human behavior, what people not only have they done in the past, what are they about to do? When are they ready to buy? That’s something that’s super, super important. So instead of trying to serve everybody from a 22-year-old broke person that wants a little term policy for $12 a month to a 75-year old that maybe needs some final expense, and everything in between. Know your audience. Practice with one specific niche. Become the very best at what you are. It’s one of the things that we teach people. We have a scientific process to bring that out. So that’s number one is audience. Wrong audience.

Number two, wrong words. This is a big one. Every single agent we talk to does this. The latest study shows that people are best persuaded and listen the best at a third-grade level. Third grade. That’s eight years old. That’s one year older than my daughter you just saw, Skylar. Eight year old. So, when you have your presentation when you’re explaining products, would an eight-year-old get it? If you’re using words that to me and I are very simple, because we see them every day, from tax-deferred to even a rider. Ask an eight-year-old, “What’s a rider?” They don’t know what that is. Tax-deferred, zero floor, dividends.

The average person, guys, does not know what a dividend is. And again, the same study, the latest study shows that if your client, or your potential client that will never turn into a client, if there’s a single word, just one word, that they don’t know what it means, they will not make a decision. So if you ever get, “Hey, this sounds great but we need to think about it” that’s not the real objection. The real objection is, “Man, this is way too important. We caught about half of what you told us.” Most financial advisors are very proud to let you know what we know and let’s talk some words and hedging and arbitrage and tax-deferred. You’re losing your clients, guys. You’re losing your clients. You’ve got to speak to them on an eight-year-old level.

And we have a step by step, word for word script that does this. And we do a survey at the end of every presentation. We always ask, “What’s your favorite thing about our insurance product?” The common answer we get all the time is, “It was simple and easy to understand. For the first time in our life, we understand what this insurance means.” Now, understand this, when we deliver it, it’s the same 60-page policy filled with legal jargon that I don’t even understand, but the way we explain it, we explain it like we’re talking to an eight-year-old so people feel good about themselves, they feel smart, they feel confident. They’re explaining it to their wife or husband. And guess what? You have to have a certain level of confidence to make a decision. They make a decision in one appointment. It works like a charm. So that’s number two.

Number three is no marketing system and don’t know your numbers. So they combined it into one. You basically don’t know your numbers, and since you don’t know your numbers, you can’t have a predictable marketing system. Now, simple, fundamental metrics like cost of acquisition, again nobody, we’re talking about 92% of the people we talk to, agents, don’t know their cost of acquisition. They always have a great excuse, “Oh, I’m new in the business. Oh, I’m 30 years old. I don’t track that.” Guys, you have to know your cost of acquisition. I mean, that’s just one example. There’s so many. Most agents are just clueless. If you ever watch Shark Tank, they ask almost every single entrepreneur how much does it cost you to get in a new client? That’s cost of acquisition. And guess what? They all know it. They know it. They have to know it. The very few that don’t know it, oh my goodness, the sharks jump on them and they kill them, and they never invest money.

So why would somebody invest with you if you don’t know something as simple as your cost of acquisition? And guys, you cannot scale and grow your business predictably unless you know these numbers. It’s absolutely impossible. That’s why we talk to agents every single day have been stuck. They call it a plateau. “My business reached a plateau.” That means, “I’ve been stuck for years at the same level.” Year after year after year. Most are going down because the business is changing faster than ever before with technology, and they’re not adapting with it. Most agents are dinosaurs.

Guys, these are the three main things. Number one, wrong audience. You’ve got to know your audience. Number two is using the wrong words. And number three, don’t know your numbers, man. So hopefully, this inspires you to improve a little bit, do a little bit of research, find out some of these very important metrics for your business. So Alberto, for now, we’ll see you. Talk to you on the next video.