Dinosaurs vs Robots

Hey, guys. Alberto here, Riehl’s Rants. Today, I want to talk to you about dinosaurs versus robots. What do I mean by that? Well, it’s the old school way of doing business versus the new way of doing business. This is where I do a lot of my work. You can see my hammock here and what I usually do in the morning is I come here on my hammock, lay down. Get some thinking done here. Now I got to be open with you. Usually I face the other way but I’m giving you guys the good view today so you’re welcome. I’ll stay here for hours in the morning thinking about business, thinking about the big picture.

As I was doing that earlier today, I saw my neighbors. You can see on this side we just have raw jungle and then of course we’ve got the Caribbean ocean right there. Then next door is our neighbors, the Clarks. The Clarks are amazing people. The Clarks are, man, they’re about 80 years old I’m guessing. You’ve heard of the Clarks. I mean, Clarks Shoes, C-L-A-R-K-S, Clarks Shoes. They have over 2,000 locations around the world. If you haven’t seen one, then you need to get out a little bit more. I started thinking about the way that they generated their wealth and their income and the way they run their business and you would think that the Clarks being 80 years old … They’re British. They got this British accent, really cute. They usually will peek on the other side of the wall there and say good morning as I’m here swimming in the ocean, which I do almost everyday or in the pool in the afternoon.

They always wonder what does this guy do? In the morning he’s out here. He’s swimming in the ocean. He’s swimming in his pool. In the afternoon by 2:00 or 3:00, he’s with his kids having fun in the backyard. They have to work a lot harder doing business the old school way. Chances are if you’re watching this right now, you’re a dinosaur. You’re doing your business … Of course we’re going to be specifically talking about life insurance. You’re doing your life insurance business, grinding it out.

Let’s compare the two models real quick. With their model, the Clarks, they have over 2,000 locations, 2,000 locations around the world. They also have over 15,000 employees, over 15,000 employees. That’s crazy, right? Now, here is the kicker. They’ve been in business over 150 years. Pretty crazy. Pretty crazy.

Now, let’s compare it to our model, the robot, the new ways of doing business. Now, I got a little confession to make. I was a dinosaur for 19 years in the insurance business. I was out there grinding it out, doing the things that I was taught by the insurance company which, by the way, are horrible, not efficient things, but grinding it out. It’s only been a few years since I became a robot and started using technology to do all the heavy lifting.

Let’s compare models. My model, I don’t have a single location. Zero location. This is my location. This is how I do business. This is my uniform. This is how I do business everyday. It’s February, by the way. It’s about 75 degrees. 2,000 locations, old model or new model, no locations, zero employees. Old model, 15,000 plus employees. This model, new model, no employees.

Now, here is the kicker again. It took them, in the old model, over 150 years to get to where they are. Now, they love being here and the Clarks, they have homes all over the world and they share with me every time I talk to them, “Oh, this is our favorite place. This is our favorite place. Oceanfront in the Caribbean.” You know what? It’s my favorite place, too. I must confess. But 150 years. It took me less than five years of being a robot to get here, less than five years of using technology to do the heavy lifting for me. Again, if you’re watching this, most likely you are a dinosaur, right? Even if it sucks and you have to admit it. Yeah, you’re a dinosaur.

Let’s talk about some common characteristics I guess that we would say about dinosaurs. If you do business the old school way, you’re probably meeting with your clients two, three, four, five times to maybe close the deal. 75% of those clients disappear after the first meeting, don’t even want to talk to you. You’re probably, if you’re a dinosaur, you are bothering your friends and family to sell life insurance. Oh, my gosh. What a horrible existence. They see you coming at Thanksgiving. Oh, no. Here he comes, going to try to sell us some life insurance.

What else do dinosaurs do? Oh, observation. Observation. Have you heard that one? Observation, let me teach you, is a fancy word for bugging strangers around you anywhere you go. What a horrible strategy. That is actually considered a strategy and it oozes desperation, desperation. What else do dinosaurs do? If you use stalling tactics and you like to stall and complicate the sales process and make it longer like procrastinating the no. You’re definitely afraid of the no so your prospect says, “Hey, follow up with me next week.” “Sure. What time?” You’re a dinosaur. Or, “Hey, send me some information.” “Sure. What would you like?” You’re a dinosaur. Here’s a good one. “Give me some numbers of your clients. I want to call and bug them because that’s what clients love to do is talk to strangers when they’re busy.” “Sure. How many clients would you like to bother of mine?” Dinosaur.

Guys, you don’t have to do business that way. Take it from a former dinosaur. It’s a lot better being a robot. It’s a lot more efficient. We let technology do the heavy lifting, the educating, the qualifying. You know that dinosaurs are still using their most valuable asset, time, to qualify and to educate people. Why not have technology do it? That’s what us robots do.

Now, we close business in one meeting. We have guys that have closed at six figure premiums a year in one meeting. Yes. Guess what? We also only talk to people that actually want to talk to us, people that come to us asking for our service they know what it is that we offer. We only talk to those people and we get to be very picky with who we talk to. We also don’t participate in any of those stalling techniques. We want to get a no as quickly as possible. Now, most of the people we talk to actually say yes because they’re looking for us. But if it’s going to be a no, we want to get it done as quickly as possible so we can get to that next yes, so we don’t participate in the stalling techniques. We do not complicate our sales process. Follow up with me. We don’t follow up. We’ll let the dinosaurs follow up for us. Send me some information. We don’t have information to send. Sorry, that’s what dinosaurs do. Let me bother some of your clients. Ah, one of my favorite ones. No. We don’t do that.

The choice is yours. Now, you can keep being a dinosaur and I fought it for a long time. I was a dinosaur for 19 years. I didn’t like technology. I kept pushing it away but I knew that finally I had to embrace it because we all know what happens to dinosaurs.

Now, if you’re the type of agent that says, “You know what? I’m still going to be a dinosaur,” I got some good news for you. The good news is the destination is the same. The result is the same. You can do the old model like a dinosaur like my neighbors which I love, by the way, the Clarks. I love those guys. That’s the good news. You will end up here. We’re next door neighbors. Now, I do have some bad news though. You will not be alive to see the result. You will not be alive to enjoy it. Maybe it’s time to start doing things with today’s technology. Maybe it’s time to be a robot.

It’s funny how I think about stuff. I was thinking, “I think there’s a movie about that. Robots against dinosaurs?” Then I thought, “No. It’s like King Kong against Godzilla or something like that.” There’s no movie of dinosaurs versus robots because it would lasts like 30 seconds. The robot would just destroy the dinosaur with its technology and lasers. There would be a lot of pissed off people paying good money for a 30 second movie. We have a complete unfair advantage today. The technology is here. It’s time to stop fighting it. But, if you choose to continue to be a dinosaur, I do have to thank you. Our group thanks you because without you, the dinosaurs, we would not have an unfair advantage. Imagine if we were all robots. Well. That’s why we’re very picky with the people and the agents and advisors that we let into our group.

Again, I’ve been there before grinding it out as a dinosaur. It’s 1:00 in the afternoon, 1:05 and I remember around this time I was usually injecting myself with Starbucks or energy drinks to try to get rid of that crash in the afternoon, grinding it out. If you’re a dinosaur, you know what I’m talking about. You’re probably experiencing that now. Today, as a robot, we just don’t fight nature anymore. We do things efficiently. If you feel a little drowsy coming on at 1:00 in the afternoon, we call that siesta time, one of my favorite parts of the day. I want to thank all the dinosaurs out there for letting the robots be robots and helping us have that unfair advantage and we will talk to you on our next video.

My Best,

Alberto Riehl