Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Justin Woodbury founder of Beyond The IMO

Episode Date: September 8, 2026

Justin Woodbury is a financial advisor, podcaster, and speaker, but the titles he is most proud of are husband to his beautiful wife, Emily, and father to two amazing children, Jackson and Juliette.In 2016, Justin’s life drastically changed when, at just two years old, Jackson was diagnosed with severe autism. Through that incredible journey, Justin learned to value different ways of thinking and living. Where most people welcome normal or the status quo, he learned to embrace different. For that and so much more, Justin will forever be grateful and humbled that God gifted their family Jackson, who is perfect as he is.During his time as Chief Marketing Officer at an IMO, Justin visited dozens of financial advisors’ offices across the country. He began to notice that the conversations he had with advisors in their offices and homes were different from the conversations they had at IMO headquarters or industry events. Advisors opened up to him about their concerns, goals, frustrations, and aspirations in ways they often wouldn’t have in a more formal environment.Justin discovered that when he truly listened, not with his “CMO” hat on or preparing to overcome an objection, but as a friend and colleague, advisors had a lot to say. More importantly, he realized that if he wanted to be a successful leader, he had a lot to learn from them. Those conversations shaped the way he led his marketing team and continue to influence the way he works with financial advisors today.In 2024, after 15 years in the IMO space, Justin resigned to become a financial advisor. It didn’t take long for him to realize how much he missed what he had spent years becoming great at: working with financial advisors.That realization led him to launch Beyond The IMO™, a transparent, advisor-first platform where financial professionals can learn, hear different perspectives, challenge conventional industry thinking, and engage with other industry leaders.Learn more: https://beyondtheimo.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-justin-woodbury-founder-of-beyond-the-imo

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us Justin Woodbury, who's the founder of Beyond the IMO. Justin, welcome to the program. Hey, thanks for having me, Mike. I appreciate you. Hey, I'm excited to talk with you. I follow you on LinkedIn, see your post and see your good work that you're doing. So I want to learn all about what you do, how you do it and why you do it. But get it started first with a little bit of your story and background and how did you get to this point in your career. Yeah, for sure. So I started in the financial industry in 2010. And I started with no background. I was actually My background was, I had a music degree.

So started in 2010 was the marketing assistant at an IMO. And for 10 years, I kind of lived in this blissful ignorance where I just thought every day I was living the definition of success. I loved going to work and I loved coming home. The reason I loved going to work is because I was able to serve advisors every day as the marketing assistant. And then I became a marketing developer talking to advisors. and I loved finding solutions and helping them get what they wanted. And I thought that's what we were all there to do. In 2020, it's a long story, but the short version is the CMO of the IMO

walked out 10 days before our largest event that we were ever going to have. We were flying advisors in from all over the country. And it was going to be a huge emphasis on marketing. And the chief marketing officer walked out. He was my boss. And the owner and the chief operating officer came up to me and said, can you take his sessions? And I said, of course. And then I went into the bathroom.

And this is 24 hours before the event? 10 days. 10 days. Okay. So 10 days. You felt like it was 24 hours. I felt like it was imminent. Like it was crazy.

And so I was like, yeah, just send me this material. And they said, well, that's the problem. He had none. And so I'm like, oh, it's not going to be a problem. And then I went in the bathroom, I think, and cried. And not really, but I put some time into it. Thankfully, people were very gracious. But after that whole experience, I went back to them and I said, hey, I've been here for 10 years.

I've earned this. I want this. I was at that point the most senior member in the marketing team. So they named me chief marketing officer in 2020. And then the entire country shut down. and what we had been doing with advisors, which was largely in-person dinner seminars, where they went away.

During that same time, I reached out to all of our top advisors and I said, how can we serve you better? And they told me two things, Mike. They said, number one, stop telling us that in-person dinner seminars is the answer to every single one of our growth needs.

Yeah. And I was confused. I said, what do you mean by that? And they said, we're tired of that. Like, every time we come to you for a marketing plan, your plan is how many seminars did you do last year? How much production did you write? How much production do you want to do next year? And then simple math, do more seminars.

And they're like, we're tired of that. And then they said, kind of on top of that, find us a marketing program where we don't have to spend all of this money. And again, I was confused because I thought, well, it's an investment. And it's not an expense. Like you don't see marketing as the right way. But I had an opportunity to listen and I'm thankful I did. And they said, we as the advisor are the ones that have to spend $100,000, $300,000 on marketing.

The IMO gets the override and the bonus regardless of how we find the client. So we're the ones that are stuck with the expensive bill at the end of the year. and you guys get the override regardless of how we get the client. So they challenged me with those two things. Very long story short, that those, the direction I started taking the marketing department did not agree with the current leadership because they enjoyed the quick income that was coming from encouraging all of these expensive seminar campaigns instead of helping advisors nurture their lead.

So in 2024, we split ways. I became an advisor myself, still am, and got my series 65, got my insurance license, but I also missed working with advisors. Every single day I woke up and I loved what I was doing, but I also missed working with advisors. So that's why I started my podcast beyond the IMO. So I could still provide value to advisors, work with advisors somewhat and kind of scratch that itch while being an advisor myself. Yeah. So no matter what IMO someone who works with, you're giving that kind of great

information, training, interaction to benefit you, sure, but also to benefit them. Yes. I am IMO agnostic. I work with anyone. But yes, that is exactly right. You know, it's interesting what you said about, you know, going through the time of I went and talked to advisors. What can we do to serve you? A, that was brilliant because too many times, you know, it's just like you just go down the road and you're just going, here's what we do. You never ask. But the insight that you brought up was, you know, they said, don't tell us to, you know, whatever it is, dinner seminars or whatever the tool is.

But it reminded me of the statement, if all you've got is a hammer, then everything you see is a nail. And it's like, you need more tools than a hammer. So you need an IMO that has more things than just their one little shiny whatever because at some point, they're out there. they're going, oh, it's saturated. Well, now let's shift over to this and let's shift over to that. And it's almost like potentially, they've got shiny object syndrome going, well, let's try this and let's just try this. Well, don't try, you know, let's, don't practice on me. Give me what's working.

Yep. You're 100% right. Our organization was excellent at helping advisors that wanted to do dinner seminars. I think we had the best seminar platform out there, but we tried to fit every single advisor into that space. And that is, you're right. We only knew how to, use a hammer and they were asking for more. And instead of just being honest and saying, we can't offer more, we'll help you find an IMO that can help you. We just, we started a radio show. We started TV.

We started social media and all this stuff, but we couldn't support it. Yeah. But, but yeah, you're right. So then in your word, because you've got your finger to the pulse of what's going on in the industry from many perspectives, as a producer, as a trainer and and guys. and coach, what are you seeing going on right now? Because I think that everyone tends to have shiny object syndrome. Like, oh, I saw this post and this person's making a gazillion dollars in 10 seconds of their time.

What's working? You know, so I am grateful to have been close friends with a lot of top producing advisors who, when they found out that I left the IMO space, they said, you need any help on the sales side, because I had supported them with marketing for years, they said, if you need any help on the sales side, fly to our office and you can spend a week with our top producers in our office and learn from them. So I actually, for about six months before I really got into the advising side, I went to these offices. And even though I learned some amazing things on how to sell. I always think marketing. You're probably the same. Like, whenever I

talk to an advisor and they start telling me what they're doing, my marketing wheels go off. Kind of like when I used to own a landscaping business when I was a teen in Michigan, every house I passed, I just noticed the lawn. When I was walking into these advisors offices, I was seeing marketing from a completely fresh perspective as an advisor. And what I can tell you, what's working is any proven marketing system that an advisor does consistently and frequently. You know, I want to stop you right there because that is a mic drop moment. It really, really is because I've said something similar out there. And it's like, for instance, I'll go, hey, do you want to know the very best CRM to use the most amazing CRM?

And be like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's the one you're going to use consistently. is the one you're going to use and understand consistently. Because have you ever heard of Basecamp and the book Rework? I read the book, Rework, from the founders of Basecamp, and they brought up something really interesting. Hey, when we were building this thing, we got all kinds of people going, oh, make this bell and whistle and do this. And they're like, no, we want this thing to be lean and mean so that people understand it, use it. And if you remember the old software called Infusion Soft, which was known in the industry as Confusion Soft, you don't want. that. So to your point, the marketing tactic that you should use should be used consistently.

And I asked an advisor once he told me about this one thing he was getting ready to start doing and I said, or he had started doing. I said, oh, how's it working for you? He goes, I don't do it. And I don't know yet. And he goes, I have committed to myself that any new initiative that I do, any marketing or whatever, I'm going to do it for one year, diligently, all in with both feet and then look back and go, what can I do to, and obviously along the way, improve and whatnot, but I'm not going to say, I spent 10 whole days doing it and it didn't, you know, revolutionize my business. So what you just said there is really, really important. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, it is, it is so true. I've seen it as a new advisor myself being consistent and frequent, but I have

never seen, and I have seen some pretty crazy, like I know an advisor, that did door-to-door sales. He didn't have a series 65, and that's a completely different topic when it comes to, like, if you can only serve clients only having your insurance license, the point is, he went door-to-door consistently and frequently for an hour every single day, and he was a top producer, and then there's TV, radio, seminars. I have seen advisors say none of that works, and when you really dig, dug into it, It was like they committed for a month.

They tried three seminars. They tried two months of radio and it just doesn't work. But I've I've not seen an advisor yet when they committed to doing something consistently and frequently for six months a year that it didn't work. Yeah. And it's very similar to the state that, you know, done is better than perfect. Just get out there and get her done and get that proof of concept or get that MVP minimum viable product and improve it from there. And there will be a time, you know, let's just call it six months. I don't know.

There will be a time that you go, you know what? It's just, I'm not feeling it. It's not working though I want, but I gave it the old college try and I can check it off and go, I really, really, you know what I'm saying? So I think that is, I think that is excellent. Yeah. And I have, you know, I have preferences. Like, if an advisor comes to me and they're brand new into the business and they're like, what works? Well, client appreciation events won't work.

going back to your database isn't going to work because you don't have any database and you don't have any clients. So, you know, a brand new advisor needs to sit in front of somebody now. I'd say, yeah, do a dinner seminar or get online lead, somebody that you can sit in front of today. If a seasoned advisor, five, 10, 15 years into the business comes to me, well, that might be a completely different conversation, but it all goes back to the reason you're doing something consistently and frequently is to get more at bats, keep the door swinging, whatever you want to call it. But that's another thing. Like, do whatever you do in marketing to get more in front of more opportunities. And if you keep that door swinging, it just works. I mean,

I feel like I'm oversimplifying it, but I can also say, Mike, that I'm not because I can speak from a brand new advisor, a brand new advisor's point of view that we have seen keeping the door open and swinging constantly as a brand new advisor. We're killing it this year. And it's not because I'm amazing at it. It's because I've had a lot of opportunities. Yeah. You know, and I think that you start, I've heard this talked about by marketing gurus that talk about, hey, you need to do this, you know, fine tune your presentation, your webinar, let's say, and your messaging and deliver it a hundred times. Because delivering it a hundred times, let's say you go live on whatever. And you had two people show up.

You had four people show up. It doesn't matter. Just do it, do it, do it, because you start polishing things up. And so getting in front of more and more people and getting those at-bats helps you to learn each time. Someone might make a comment that goes, oh, there's a pain point I've never thought to, you know, delve into. Yes. This is one of my favorite quotes, and you can probably relate to this too. But when I started, I had a podcast when I was at the IMO when I left, I had to leave it behind and then I restarted beyond the IMO. But I still to this day don't love the sound of my own voice. I don't edit my own podcast because it takes hours and hours and hours because I'm so critical. But I came across this quote, to your point, your first podcast recording will be back. Your first, and this wasn't in there, but I'll apply it to us advisors. Your first seminar is going to be bad.

Your first radio show is going to be bad. Your first social media post is going to be bad. But you can't get to your 100th until you do your first. So put aside your ego and start posting, start doing seminars, whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah, do something and then do it again because you'll suck less. And then do it again because you suck a little bit less. I mean, it just really is the case.

So let's talk a little bit, too, about what you help. advisors do or you yourself is getting found on Google because I don't care what people say about AI. AI's not going away. AI is exploding. We know that. We know that people are doing some searches on AI. But still, people grab that Google and they, that's their, you know, being is long gone, you know, all of that. But people still go searching for an advisor on Google. What does that look like in your world? So, you know, whether it's AI or Google, or anything, one thing that people do, and they'll continue to do even more so, I think the statistic is like 99% of people will look for reviews.

And I've asked people, like, who doesn't read reviews on Amazon? And if they're crazy like me, like even for a tub of toothpaste or a fan that I'm buying from my daughter's room, like, I'll go through the reviews and read them and look for them. So I have seen when it comes to being online. and trying to be found online that getting reviews on Google is one of the best ways to be found online and to get clients from online. I was in a client's office last summer. One of the guys that actually said you can sit with our top advisors and learn from them.

I heard the phone ringing and ringing and my marketing mind went to. I wonder where those calls are coming from. I went to the receptionist during a break and asked her, and she's like, they're all from Google. And I'm like, well, how many calls do you get every day from Google? And she's like three to four. And so I went to the owner of the company and I asked him about it. And he actually let me geek out on his website a little bit. He had no correct H1 tags and all the stuff that people say you have to have in order to be found on Google.

But he had like 217 reviews on Google. Wow. And they're number one. They did 30 million from Google that year. Wow. Okay. Now, let's pause right there because I've been in the industry and I've worked long enough to realize that there's this word that sends shivers up the spine of an advisor,

which is compliance. And it used to be that you couldn't send a thank you note without getting compliance approval. Well, man, alive. You certainly can't go get reviews. Well, that's lightened up over the recent few years. There's certain ways you have to ask, all those things you have to follow. But to your point, you have to have to realize that your prospects choose an advisor the same way that you and I choose things too. Don't we go to Amazon and look for this certain thing and we open up three tabs to see here's three people selling it?

Let me see the reviews. Oh, my word. This one's got 10,000 reviews. This one has 10. Guess which one I'm buying? Yep. 100%. If you're doing that for something as cheap as a toothpaste like I do, think of how much more people are doing that when you're asking them to give you and trust you with their life savings.

It is such a no-brainer. And you're right, Mike. The SEC has lightened up. It is not illegal to ask or solicit reviews. The blurry lines is when it comes to responding to reviews because you can get. into entanglement and stuff, but I actually just did a really cool review. So let's let's, you know, from my perspective here, here's a couple little tips that I would throw out. A, inducement to give a review or inducement to give a five star review. I've seen

people make this mistake in other industries like, oh, hey, when you give us a five star review, we're going to give you a Starbucks card. No, please don't ever do that. Yeah. Don't ever do that because now Google gets. wind of that. They're like, you're inducing people to give only a five-star review. Now, gray area, hey, we would love your feedback. When you give any review and give us your honest thoughts, we're going to enter you into a drawing to win a Starbucks card. No matter what you say, you know, that could be, but inducement is huge. Secondly, here's something else. And this is something where if you have a tool that you use and you recommend, please let us know.

but I will tell you this. If you pull up your Google My Business Review link and email it out to clients and prospects or clients and go give me a review, you're going to have people potentially gone, hey, Justin's a great guy, but man, I just hate the fact that he, and it's like, wait a minute, you don't like the way I part my hair? It has nothing to do. You know, like sometimes you see an Amazon review that gives a one star and they go, the box arrived crushed.

That's not the seller's fault. So my question is. how do you advise an advisor to get reviews where there's a little bit of a layer of protection there where you're not sending right to the Google so that you don't potentially get some, you know, craziness going on? So I would say a couple of things. One, because I've had advisors say, well, I don't want to ask for reviews because what if I get a negative one? So, one, you don't have to ask for negative reviews. If somebody's going to leave you one, they're probably going to do it without you having to ask. So the chances are that you can't control that.

Secondly, if people see all five-star reviews, they suspect censorship. You and I know that Google doesn't censor reviews, but people see all, like, they see 200, five-star reviews. They're like, nobody can be that amazing. So I've actually left four-star reviews for some advisor friends that I've worked with and that I trust and I've told them. I'm like, you, you have too many five star reviews. You need a three or a four star review. But yeah, so that's a positive comment. Like, like, hey, Justin's a great guy. And I just wish that he would work Saturdays. You know, something like that is like, oh, there's the four star review.

So it's not a negative review. But I, I do agree with you very similar in marketing to, hey, the product is $100 or, hey, the product is $99. Which one are you picking? It's the psychology. It's the psychology of, oh, it's two figures, not three figures. So the four star, four and a half, four and a quarter, great. It shows, you know, transparency. I think that's big. And if you, if you, if people read through some of those lesser reviews, anybody, I feel like with a brain will, we'll be able to see, well, that, that review reflects more

on the person who left it than the company sometimes. Yeah. 100%. Yeah, because you can, like sometimes I read reviews and I'll just roll, like the one about the box. You know, it's like, whatever, come on. You know, that's, that guy is not his fault. So that's, that's no problem. So let's wrap up with this, Justin. If someone with, you know, we could do about an hour long segment on this next question, but how does an advisor choose the right IMO?

Man, that is such a good question. And you're right. I'll just say that there are a lot of IMOs out there. that offer a lot of different things, but some of them kind of specialize in certain things. So are you wanting to get on social media? Are you wanting to be on radio? Do you want to be on TV? Do you want to do seminars?

Or do you already know, you already have your marketing in place? You don't need any of that, but you're just looking for an IMO to hang your license with because they're kind of a necessary evil. And you really have to just dig into those kind of. of conversations. And I've actually got a list that I can send you that just talks about like before choosing an IMO, make sure you're asking these questions. What happens to my website?

If you build it for me. If I ever leave, do I get to take it with me? Like, so I think there's a lot of great IMOs out there. More importantly, I think that you should really be aware of some of the, what I call golden handcuffs going into an IMO relationship. So I think there's a lot of good choices. I also think advisors need to go in with both eyes wide open when it comes to the catches. Like, don't, I was just talking to someone the other day.

And their IMO offered a free CRM. And they're like, we can look at your contacts and we can tell you when your contracts are due and when surrenders are close and stuff. And it sounded great. But I said, well, reach out to them and ask what happens if you ever leave them. and come to find out that free CRM that they would be able to have all that stuff in, it stayed with the IMO. So they would lose all of that data. Well, that's fine if you know going into it and you're in the know.

But an IMO is not going to just come right out and tell you that, you know. So there's so much when it comes to that. I would say, and I consult people all the time on that, they just ask lots of questions and be sure that you know what you're getting into and what you would be walking away from, your radio program, whatever, your spots, whatever it is, just be in the know. And then you have to decide if that is the risk worth taking

for whatever else they have to offer. That's a great, let's just stop right there because that is a great one protection point right there. And what you mentioned about the website, I was talking to an advisor just the other day that had that exact thing happen. Exactly. So it's not like you're saying, you know, oh, these things could, you know, might happen and they never will.

You know, with an IMO for 10 plus years. And they, I can understand the website assets, you know, the look and the feel, but they owned the URL domain. Right. Where if he owned the domain, he could easily do a DNS redirect and build a new website and pointed on a new server and be down the road. No problem. They held him hostage with. the domain and the domain had his name on it. It was advisor, advisor, first name, less name.com.

It wasn't like, you know, bright space, you know, a retirement. It was his name. So it's like you've got to check those things out. And there's so many questions when you're making a decision like that. Sometimes those things aren't thought of, but that's a huge point. I'll tell you a quick story if I can. When I became CMO, one of the first things I did was help advisors move our their domains that we had helped them buy because I had a good heart.

The intentions were pure, but I realized this isn't good because they need to own their own branded, their own intellectual property. So one of the first things we did was help them get, you know, set up a GoDaddy account or network solutions, whatever it was, and move their domains over. The second thing I did is I told every advisor that we charged, I don't know how many IMOs do this, but we charged around three grand to build a site for the advisor. I told them and I told the marketing developers on the team, you tell these advisors, if they ever leave, the first thing that our team will do is say, in what form would you like your website? Because we will not hold that hostage.

About a month ago, I got a call from an advisor, and he said that he started out the conversation by saying, are you lying or were you lying or are they lying? And I'm like, well, what are you talking about? come to find out he was getting ready to leave that IMO and he asked for website to be transferred and they said we don't transfer that and he's like I paid three grand for the site and I was told that it would come with me and so long story short they wound up giving it to him but he had to fight for it pretty hard yeah and again it I don't think it was a bad the IMO's with was

was bad I do think advisors need to go into that with both eyes wide open and being in the know so know what they're getting into. And, and, you know, these days, we can go down the rabbit trail of, of this conversation, which is just protect yourself. You know, like keep, on social media, it's like I've seen people go, man, I built a half a million follower Facebook group and it's vibrant and then they just shut it out for no reason. So I'm going to go and build it on whatever, go high level. And I saw this person actually said this.

And then people were going, okay, well, then go high level can shut you down. So, I mean, at some point, you have to trust something, but make sure you go in with eyes wide open. Where are you going to be in handcuffs? Where do you have the flexibility? And that actually, that is rare that you just mentioned. Like when you have an IMA that says, oh, we're going to give you and give you and give you, man, that's pretty huge because that means if their character is high enough to do that, then other things that come down the road of, you know, potential issues, they're going to. to be handling those the right way as well, hopefully. So that's been really, really good, Justin. This has been a great conversation. I really appreciate you coming on. I've learned a lot.

Appreciate your approach to the industry. If someone is interested in listening to your podcast, reaching out and connecting with you, what's the best way they can do that? Yeah. Beyondtheimo.com is the website. And then my email address is just Justin at Beyond the IMO. And someone on the team sees those emails and we'll reach out. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. Yeah. Thanks, Mike. I appreciate you. Kevin me. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes,

visit www.com.com.