I am Charles Schwartz Show - The 80% Close Rate Formula

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

In this episode, Charles dives deep into the world of content marketing and digital sales strategies with Ryan Hanley, the innovative entrepreneur who transformed from a struggling insurance agent to a digital marketing powerhouse. Ryan shares his extraordinary journey of building and selling a thriving digital agency in just two years, all while revolutionizing the way businesses approach content creation and sales. Ryan unveils his groundbreaking "100 Days, 100 Videos" strategy that catapulted his business to new heights. Through engaging anecdotes and practical advice, Ryan and Charles explore the untapped potential of answering real customer questions to create an endless stream of valuable content that builds trust and authority in any industry. Ryan's passion for authentic communication and innovative sales techniques shines through as he breaks down his "one call close" process, a game-changing approach that dramatically increased his team's close rates. He emphasizes the importance of listening, empathy, and transparency in sales, challenging traditional notions of what it means to be a great salesperson. Whether you're a content creator looking to never run out of ideas, a salesperson aiming to improve your close rates, or an entrepreneur seeking to build a scalable business model, this episode is packed with actionable insights. Get ready to be inspired and equipped with the tools necessary to transform your digital presence and sales approach. Key Takeaways: Discover Ryan's "100 Days, 100 Videos" strategy for creating an endless stream of engaging content Learn how to implement the "one call close" process to dramatically improve your sales conversion rates Gain insights into building a scalable business model that leverages content marketing and innovative sales techniques Understand the power of video proposals in closing deals and building customer trust Explore strategies for pivoting your career and business in the face of challenges and industry changes Head over to https://podcast.iamcharlesschwartz.com/ to download your exclusive companion guide, designed to guide you step-by-step in implementing the strategies revealed in this episode. Key Points: 4:13 Digital Transformation: Ryan reveals how he pivoted from traditional insurance sales to digital marketing. 7:12 Explosive Growth: Detailing the rapid expansion of his business through innovative content strategies. 9:15 Overcoming Adversity: Exploring Ryan's journey through career challenges and his subsequent growth. 15:57 Client Engagement: Unveiling effective strategies for meaningful client communication. 19:32 Content Creation Arsenal: Ryan breaks down his toolkit for efficient content production. 23:24 One Call Close Mastery: Introducing the revolutionary "one call close" technique. 26:00 Open-Ended Questioning: Demonstrating the power of starting sales conversations with open-ended questions. 31:23 The Winning Moment: Ryan reveals the "kill shot" in his sales process. 33:35 Process Transparency: Emphasizing the importance of clearly explaining the sales process to clients. 35:58 Video Proposal Innovation: Exploring the game-changing impact of video proposals in sales. 38:51 Proposal Delivery Mastery: Breaking down the nuanced process of delivering effective video proposals. 41:26 Video Proposal Advantages: Highlighting the multifaceted benefits of using video proposals in sales.

Today, we're diving deep into the world of content creation and digital marketing with Ryan Hanley, a man who turned a struggling insurance career into a thriving digital empire. Ryan's story is a masterclass in reinvention. He transformed from a self-proclaimed terrible salesman into a content marketing mastermind who sold his agency just two years after launch. Ryan isn't your typical digital strategist. He's refreshingly authentic with groundbreaking approaches that have turned the traditional sales model on its head. He'll share his revolutionary one call close technique, his strategy for creating endless content, and how he leveraged video to close deals while his prospects were in their pajamas. But this isn't just another

how to create content episode. Ryan's focus is on providing genuine value, answering the real questions your customers are asking, and building trust through transparency. Whether you're looking to supercharge your sales process or establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry, Ryan's got the blueprint. So if you're ready to unleash walls of engaging content and transform your sales approach, this is the episode for you. Ryan is about to reveal the secrets that took him from begging for his job to building a business that buyers couldn't resist. The show starts now.

Welcome to the I Am Charles Schwartz Show, where we don't just discuss success, we show you how to create it. On every episode, we uncover the strategies and tactics that turn everyday entrepreneurs into unstoppable powerhouses in their businesses and their lives. Whether your goal is to transform your life or hit that elusive seven, eight, or nine figure mark, we've got the blueprint to get you there. The show starts now. Today, we're talking to somebody who's exited twice, been fired a bazillion times, and has figured this out on a massive level. Ryan, welcome to the show. Oh man, it's so good to be here. And I wish we had recorded the first

43 minutes of our conversation because those were absolutely brilliant. We definitely can. We'll share a lot of that in here. And again, if we want to come back and do more or vice versa, yeah, there was a lot of insights that most people aren't talking about. But the stuff that I want to talk about are things that you've done that no one else that I've ever heard of has done. You've done multiple exits. You did one of your exits during COVID. Walk me through this process

how you've grown an audience organically. How did you do that? And tell me more about that. Yeah, my strategy for growing to independent insurance agencies at a massive level has been born out of the fact that I was a terrible traditional salesman. So just to give the people the context of how I got there,

I basically joined the insurance industry. Like most people, I fell into it. It's not sexy. No, no little boy or girl wakes up in the morning or, you know, and goes, I can't wait to be an insurance agent when I grow up, right? So I have my wife. I want to marry her. I go to ask her father for her hand in marriage. And he essentially kind of makes me an offer I can't refuse, literally, like in one of those old offices in his house with the high leatherback chairs and the wood panels with his son standing over

his shoulder and basically says, you know, that's great. You can marry her, but I want you to come sell insurance for me, which at the time seemed like a great offer. So I took it. That being said a year in, he calls me into his office and fires me on the spot. And because I'm a terrible cold calling, driving around, dropping business cards off, all this kind of traditional stuff did not work for me at that time. Now I could care less about it. It's all good. I cold call people all the time when necessary. But, uh, at that time it was like painful to me. Cause I had that feeling, which I know a lot of salespeople do of like, you're interrupting someone's day. You, you, you don't believe in the value you're bringing. And that's where I was at that time. So he fires me and I did what any self-respecting young where I was at that time. So he fires me. And I

did what any self-respecting young man would do at that time. I got down on my knees and literally said to him, please don't make me go home to your little girl and tell her that you fired me. Like, and you probably don't want to get that call either. So let's talk about this. He gives me a six month extension and I know I have to do something differently. So this is 2009. And I dove into digital, I was like, there has to be another way of getting what I do the value I provide in front of people. And at my heart, I'm an educator. And so sharing on YouTube and in written blogs was kind of a natural fit when once I found it. So what I did was very simple. I collected the questions that my prospects

and clients asked me every single day. And then starting on January 2nd of 2012, I answered those questions in a YouTube video, two minutes or less every single day for a hundred days in a row. And by doing that, I created a library of information about my business that had never been created before on the internet that was specific to me.

People could see me, they could hear me, they saw the way I moved, the way I talked, how I talked about problems. And what happened was the people that started to reach out to us, they were already sold. And this is the beauty of creating content and answering common questions about your business, particularly if you're a small business online, is that when people get to experience you visually, right? Reading your writing is great. Hearing you on a podcast only, wonderful. But when they get to hear you and see you, watch the way your eyes move, watch the way

you hold yourself, your cadence, your tone. They know if they connect with you immediately. And once they do, when they decide to pick up the phone, they're not shopping for your product. They have decided that you are who they want to work with. And all they're looking for is validation that you're the same person that they watched online. So we started writing business at

incredible rates. It completely changes my career and we become this digital agency. Now, what happened was, as with many small businesses, I'm an in-law or a son-in-law at this point. And essentially I was told that while they appreciated everything I was doing and the growth, et cetera, uh, my name would never be on the box. I would never have a chance to own that agency and that I would have to be happy only ever being a producer. And I don't mean to say only like being a producer, which is what they call a salesperson in the insurance industry isn't a respectable career at 32 years old. That just wasn't enough for me to know that I didn't have any other path at that age. Uh, I just couldn't accept it. So, uh, I quit that job or essentially I was pushed out because of that, but I did, I quit and took a job as a CMO of a national

insurance technology company. And there's a bunch of stories in there, but essentially I gained insights over that time that allowed me to hone that process. And then in 2019, I was the CEO of a fitness franchise. And, uh, I came in the, I'd been working out at this gym for about six years. I was looking for a change, uh, out of the insurance industry. I just had had a couple positive yet ending negatively experiences and felt maybe just the insurance is the right fit for me. So I joined this fitness business. The founder said, I'm a gym guy. I want to work on the gym stuff. I need a business guy to scale this thing. I want to go regional. And I agreed. And in the course of 10 months, I grew that business from 2,100 members to 3,200 members. We were the number one mentioned business in all of our

region, which is the Albany, New York, greater capital region of New York upstate area. We're the number one mentioned business from a media perspective. We put on 1100 customers or 1100 members and just under 10 months. And the problem was I made the business so profitable that the founder decided he no longer wanted to scale, was happy with that growth. And I was his largest expense. So he fires me on the spot, literally walks in the office. There's a pattern developing here. Yeah. Yeah. He goes, he says, you've done an incredible job. So we did all that, by the way, net zero employees. I let two highly underachieving employees go, replace them with two new employees.

So we net zero additional fixed cost on employee expense, yet scaled the business 1,100 new members, which at $125 a member is a lot of profit. And he basically said, thank you, but I kind of want to take it back over. And he took the business back. So here I am out on the street again. And that's when I decided it was time to become an entrepreneur. I had this vision for a national digital commercial insurance agency. I wanted to serve small businesses, but I wanted to do it in a way that was easy yet still leveraged our humans. I called it a human optimized business. And I literally ran the same exact playbook on YouTube again. Now I didn't know that the zombie apocalypse was coming. So I launched March 9th of 2020. I'm $57,000 in the hole because starting an insurance agency is not an inexpensive business, despite what you might think. And seven days later, March 16th, Governor Cuomo shuts the state of New York down. And now, you know, everyone remembers that time,

right? Nothing is happening. I'm watching money just light on fire and float away. And I had a dark month, but pulled myself out and said, it's time to get to work. And I literally ran the same playbook. I just started answering common questions again. And because it was COVID and there wasn't a lot of activity, I had tons of time and I just pumped out videos. And in two years, we were able to generate so much traffic, so much inbound leads that we were acquired two years later, almost to the day. And I exited from that business in November of 2023. I love the recap. There's a lot of movement there. And there's a lot of questions that I have, and I'm sure the audience has about scaling. So I want to get into kind of the tangibles of this. So the overall idea is you're going to post a question, you're going

to answer the top 100 questions, and you're going to post a video every single day. You're going to do two minutes, nothing more, nothing less. When you're doing this, we talk about where to post, be it LinkedIn, or be it Instagram, or be it YouTube, or be it a podcast. How do you decide before you start pushing out the questions, we'll get into what questions you decide and how you record it and how you publish it and how you build your funnels and all that. How do you decide which avenues the best way to post? So for me, YouTube being the second largest search engine, and I think with AI, it's rapidly going to become the largest search engine. Um, YouTube was number one always. So we had a create once share

multiple time strategy. So what that would look like is I would create a video and say, post it on Monday morning, description, title, thumbnail, you know, do all that stuff, right? With this type of highly educational stuff, you do not need to be you do not need to follow a vlog format. You're not, this is an entertainment content. It doesn't have to be you with wide eyes and all kinds of crazy text on the thumbnail, straightforward, professional, you know, well done, but, but straightforward and professional. So you don't have to over-engineer that. So we would post that on a Monday set the next Monday, that video would get transcribed, turned into a blog post format, and then embedded

with a slightly different headline, capturing the same keywords on our website. The following Monday, we would post that video in its full format natively on LinkedIn with a slightly different description, slightly different headline, et cetera. And then the following weeks, now we didn't do this the first time because shorts and stuff didn't exist, but in 2020 and in that business, it did. Uh, we would then chop that video up into usually two or three shorts. If we could get them, just try to capture a couple of punchy, a couple of punchy lines. And we would post those shorts out again on YouTube first. And then over the next couple of weeks, uh, Instagram

as well. So we didn't do anything with TikTok. It really was just Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube were our primary methods for getting it out. But that would give us six weeks of content, right? And then what would happen is as you stack those, you'd have in the morning, you'd have the new YouTube video for that Monday. At noon, you'd have the blog post version of the post from the day before or the week before. And then in the afternoon, I'd have the native LinkedIn video going out from two weeks before. And that would look like we were creating three times as much content as we actually were. And we were active on all the channels, posting in the formats that

they preferred, right? So like LinkedIn would way more prefer that you post a native video, which means uploading it directly into LinkedIn versus resharing the YouTube video. So I'm capturing an SEO on YouTube. I'm capturing SEO on our website. And then I'm natively generating engagement on LinkedIn through these native videos, through the native upload of the videos as well. So I love how you broke it down very strategically. It's like, okay, month A, week A, week one, month A, we're going to post this. Next week, we're going to do that.

But that same day on that Monday, we're posting stuff from before, and then we're selecting stuff from three weeks back. So you're constantly mixing it up. When you're choosing these questions, how do you choose the questions? Or is it just ones that your clients have chosen you? If someone doesn't have clients right now, do they just use chat GPT? What are the ways that you get to prove and have all of these questions that you get to answer? Yeah. So I'll answer both scenarios. If you have clients today, ask them what questions they have. So literally what I would do, what I did at the first, the first

business, which was called the Murray group, um, they had 40 years worth of clients. So we sent out emails and I had the receptionist ask every single person who came in. If you could have one question answered about insurance, no question is too small, too large, silly, no such thing. If you could have one question answered about insurance, what would it be? And I just collected those questions. And here's the key. I kept them verbatim to the way they ask the question, because when people search online, right, they don't necessarily ask that question in perfect English, perfectly formatted, maybe not the way that you would ask it. So I would keep them verbatim. Now, here's a good example of that. There is a silly coverage. I call it silly because it is. In New York State, it's the only state that

requires this coverage. It's called New York State Short-Term Disability Coverage. No one even knows it exists, yet every business in New York has it. And it's like, the premiums are like $44 per female $19 for male. So most insurance agents don't even tell their customers that they're adding this policy into their package. They just added automatically as if it was part of their workers comp or something like that. So one of my clients asked, what is New York State short term disability the way that was written out, right? I might've put NY. I may have gotten rid of the New York, whatever, but that's the way she asked it. So that's the video I created. Well, six months later,

one of the largest insurance carriers in the state of New York that offered that coverage decided to, that they wanted to get out of offering it. So every single customer, thousands of businesses in the state of New York, every single customer they had got a notice in the mail that said, upon renewal, you have to find a new carrier. We're no longer offering this coverage. When they got that letter, what do you think they typed into Google? What is New York state short-term disability? We were the only entity ever in the history online to ever actually answer that question. And from that video alone, I think we did last time I checked, it was like $150,000 in revenue,

just from that one stupid one minute and 32 second video that we created online. And the only reason that I created it, cause I would have never created that video. I would have never talked about that coverage, right? I was just like every other insurance agent. The only reason I did it is because my client wrote it down. So if I had clients, I would go to them first. If I don't have clients, then chat GPT or perplexity or whatever are great examples. And what I would, and how I would do it is what are, uh, pick, pick a very specific, uh, part of your business. Not just like if you have a bakery, don't just, what are, uh, pick, pick a very specific, uh, part of your business. Not just like, if you have a bakery, don't just, what are questions about bakery pick?

What are like a primary customer that you want? Maybe, um, uh, say, uh, uh, bulk orders, right? What are the top 17 questions that someone who's ordering bulk bakery goods would ask of a bakery or something like that. And watch the questions come out. Use your brain to filter them out. If they're crazy, obviously, make sure that ChatGPT is accurate. I mean, you don't want to take the AI for 100%. But as long as they seem reasonable, just start there. And what's going to happen is you will start to get some customers from those and then ask constantly be asking your customers and just, you know, and this is basic business practice, just listen to them, like listen to what they ask you. And if they ask you a question, write it down and then go back and answer that question on YouTube,

because we're no longer the gatekeepers of information in any space. 20 years ago, before the internet, I guess 30 years ago now, I have to say, we were the gatekeepers. Getting old. Every professional was the gatekeeper of their information. If you wanted to know about accounting, you had to go sit with an accountant. If you wanted legal advice, you had to go sit with a lawyer. If you wanted to know about how to order bulk bakery goods, you had to go to the bakery and ask the baker how they got them. That day has come and gone. And nobody wants to do business with someone who isn't giving some amount of information for them so that they can feel comfortable about

reaching out. And that has just continued to work over and over and over again in every business that I've been a part of. I think language is so important. We talk about this all the time. If you're going to develop a dating app, dating app for a 20 year old, what you're going to say there, you know, what the type, how you're going to describe the dates versus a dating app for a 35 year old, totally different environment. 20 year old wants spontaneity and travel and excitement. 35 year old, family orientoriented, stable, business. So it's a completely different language.

Don't try and outsmart your customers in any way, shape, or form. Use their exact language. If you're using slang, for example, when you're talking about the bakery, I would add in, what are the bulk orders for people who live in New York? How would they ask that question? Because someone who lives in New York is going to ask questions very differently than someone who lives in Mississippi. It's a completely different culture versus someone who lives in New York is going to ask questions very differently than someone who lives in Mississippi. It's a completely different culture versus someone who lives

in California. Completely different culture, what they want, how they want to be fed. It does organic matter. All of these things matter. So when you're asking these very specific questions, how do you make sure you're using that language? The next thing I have is you're creating a ton of content and you're massive producing it. What are the tools that you're using to simplify this? We talk about this all the time, that system sets you free. What are the things that you're using? So, okay, wow, this is a ton of content to create. How do I transcribe it? How do I edit it? What are the tools? What are the secrets? Because you've been doing this for over a decade. And one of the things I love about you is if you go to your

YouTube channel, it literally has a video of you that's 10 years ago and you keep it up there. And there's so many people out there who say, no, take it down. It's not, no, no, that is your authenticity. That shows you who you are as a human being. And I love that you have the courage to do that because most people won't, but the tools that existed a decade ago are very different than the tools that exist now. If you're creating walls of content like this, what are the tools that you're using to make that easier and more efficient? Yeah. So there's really two tools that I use today for most of it. And that's, uh, so I do, I do some of my own editing. There are some videos that I, that I use, uh, um, a team member for some of the stuff I do myself because I've been doing it for

so long that there are certain styles that I just like putting together. So I'm going to take out like the editing software piece if people want, but I use Premiere Pro. It's just what I know. I don't know that I would recommend that for people if they're just starting out because it is a lot of YouTube videos and a lot of training to get used to it. However, that's what I use and whatever. That being said, you really just need two tools to do this. One, I use a tool called, I'm going to make sure I get the URL right for everybody. It is podium.page. This will give you, you, you upload the, either the video or the audio file. It will give you

all your show notes. It will give you all your titles. It, you know, and I'm not saying you use all this verbatim, but it gives you that baseline set of all the pieces of text around the video content that you're going to need. And then I use right now Opus Pro to get lips in and stuff like that. So it's pretty straightforward stuff. I don't use a ton of tools. I don't recommend a ton of tools. And then we use Dropbox and we use folders in Dropbox. So we know where everything is in the process. And that's it. Cause I believe in posting natively. A lot of platforms will throttle content that is scheduled, not all of them, but it's constantly changing. And I don't want to have to chase algorithms, nor do I believe in chasing them necessarily, unless your entire business is influencer marketing, which we had a discussion

about that before. Um, yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so for me, it's, it's a couple simple tools. And then just a documented SOP process in Dropbox, where it's like a raw, published, you know, ready for YouTube, published, published on YouTube, once it's published on YouTube, it gets moved to ready for website, once it gets published on the website, ready for LinkedIn. Once it's published on LinkedIn, ready for shorts. So that file just moves down these folders. And you know, when we just have dates next to them and we know what goes out when, and then that schedule is just, it's just an SOP. It's just, it's just a manual, uh, process. And by using podium, uh, and getting like a baseline for what our text is going to be and that kind of stuff. Um, you know, we don't have to do all the heavy, heavy lifting around

the tech side and the transcribing. So we're getting that stuff done, cleaning it up a little bit. So anything that doesn't sound natural or isn't what we actually want to say, you know, headlines, we usually write ourselves, uh, through a little bit of testing and just having done it for a long time, but, uh, it, it gives you some, some, um, uh, suggestions to get you going if you're just not used to this and just getting started. And a lot of them are perfectly fine. So we, I don't believe in spending a lot on this stuff. I don't think it's necessary. I don't think you have to, uh, I think that the other thing too, in terms of lead capture is don't over-engineer your landing page, right? You clear, concise, tell them exactly what they need to do and be very consistent in where you send people. And then just it's the follow-up process after that.

I mean, that's just kind of business one-on-one stuff. So when you talk about the follow-up process, there is something that you're starting to do that I've never heard of before. And you're talking about this way to close that is different than anyone else I know who has done this. And it's a very specific way. So I get the idea that you've described to me so far, which is, hey, this is how we grow it. This is how we get the people in. It's a very specific SOP. This is how we produce walls of content. But your way to close them once they do that, because they've already built rapport, which is all the videos you're doing. You're

building rapport. You're building, Hey, I already know this person. I already liked this person. You've already built your KLT with this individual, no like and trust. Now you've got them on the phone or now you're in that process. You have a specific way of closing people. And this is something that we were talking about in the 43 minutes before we jumped on the call. One of the thing, this is something that I hadn't heard someone discuss before. And it was something that if you're open to it, I'd love to talk more about those details on how to do this. Yeah. So I realized very early that an inbound lead is a very particular and unique prospect, unlike referrals, unlike any outbound prospecting, unlike leads you buy from a lead

service, someone who has watched your content and filled out a form is a very different type of a lead and you have to approach them differently. So we crafted a process that I call the one call close process. Just to kind of not bury the lead here, I am not recommending that you have to close the person on the call. But to be respectful to that individual who has consumed your content is essentially already sold. We what we don't want to have to do is go back and forth with them three, four or five times on follow ups. We want to make sure that we have established with them that they don't have to keep shopping. Nobody wants to call. There is this common misbelief around small business owners that I have come across over

and over, particularly small business owners over and over and over again, that anyone who comes to them is a shopper, right? So if they reach out and they cold call them, yeah, I hunted that prospect and I dragged them back in and blah, blah, blah, you know, the ego gets involved. But on an inbound, they're like, oh, this person's just, they're a shopper. Why would they be calling us? They're a shopper. That is not true. Nobody in anything wants to call multiple people. Now for the industry that I was raised in the insurance industry, that is particularly true. No one wakes up in the morning and says, you know what I'd like to do today? I'd like to call five

different insurance agents and compare them. That sounds like fun. Nobody wants to do that, right? Nobody does that. So what we need to do is establish upfront and immediately that this is the last call they need to make. So this process, it's a five-step process that we created. It's very straightforward. If you've read Never Split the Difference, some of this is going to sound familiar by Chris Voss. And it starts with a very simple, but seemingly difficult for a lot of sales reps, open-ended question to start, which is simply, you know, hi, Charles. My name's Ryan. Thank you so much for reaching out to Rogris,

which was the name of my agency. What's going on? How can I help? And then shut the fuck up. Yes. Silence is your weapon. Do not speak again. This was the hardest part for them. I'm like, don't start explaining everything we do. Don't start explaining who you are. Don't start. Do none of that. Just what's going on. How can I help and shut up and just be silent. And what will happen during that time? Because again, this is a different mindset. These people have watched your videos. They know what their problem is. They know the problem they're trying to solve, right? They're not being cold called. You didn't cold call this person. They didn't mistakenly fill out some lead somewhere. And now all of a sudden they're getting bombarded with calls from, from service providers, right? This is someone who chose you. They want you in your brain. They want you to be the solution. All they're trying to do is validate that you are. So you, you introduce yourself, you thank them, you ask them how you can help and you shut up. And what will happen is that person will barf all of their problems on you and will give you everything you need to close that lead.

So what'll happen is they'll start with whatever the, the, the service level issue is, but if you can remain quiet and this is the hardest part, guys. But if you can remain quiet, and this is the hardest part, guys. So if you're a business owner on this, this is going to be the hardest part for your reps. If you sell for a living and you're listening to this, this is a very tough thing to do. We want to add value.

We want to start talking about features and benefits and pricing. Don't. Do not. Put a piece of tape over your mouth if you have to. But listen, because what will happen is that person will ramble on and tell you really the issue is they have no problem with their coverage or their pricing, but their agent never gets back to them, right? They're just saying, I can't get back to them. Or one of the issues in the insurance industry is certificates of insurance. So in order

for a lot of contractors, delivery people, warehouses, manufacturers, they need to have a certificate of insurance before they can either walk on a job site or they get paid. And a lot of times that has to happen very snappy. So if someone's non-responsive, that's a big trigger. But if you, you know, they're unhappy with their insurance, you don't actually know what the problem is. You got to listen to what the problem is and they will give you, they'll give you non-responsive. But they've auto renewed my coverage five years in a row without reaching out to me and asking me any questions. I don't know if I'm properly covered because I haven't talked to anybody in years. They'll literally barf all the answers out to you and you just listen and write them down.

As you hear things that you think are going to be selling points, and this is where the Chris Voss comes in, we do some mirroring and some labeling. So simple things like, what I heard you say is responsiveness is incredibly important to you. Is that true? Yes. So what you're getting them to do is validate that if you can solve that problem in the future, right? And we don't want to say, if I can be responsible, no, do not make it about us, make it about them. What I heard you say is responsiveness is very important to you. Is that true? Yes. And you go, okay, check mark that, that I'm going to come back to that one. Okay. And whatever the rest of them are mirror or label what their concerns are back to them. And if you don't know

about mirroring and labeling, either read split the difference or just Google it, you'll find out what they mean. It's very simple stuff and, um, and, and validate. So now what you've done in section one is you have heard the real issues that the actual sales triggers, and you've got them to confirm that those are the things that they're actually concerned about. Again, they've already chosen you. I haven't even talked about what I do for a living, what my product is, because it doesn't matter. So once we get back to that and we've set our expectations, um, and we're, or we've, we've mirrored and labeled back to them. Now we start setting our expectations as to what they can, um, what they need to do for

the process. So, right. And I also think it's important to explain to people what you, to revalidate what you said earlier, which is they've already chosen you because you're no longer the gatekeeper for information. Yes. They've already gone through the process. They've read your information. They've decided, okay, this is the person. They're just trying to validate who you are. And now you're using something called tactical empathy, which again, Chris is an amazing human being. Never split the book. Difference is just go read the book. Just don't have steak dinners with Chris

and his son. They eat a lot more than you do. But if you go through this environment, you're using tactical empathy. That's all that's going on right now. They've already gotten through the door. This isn't how it was 30, 40 years ago where you randomly walk into stores. The only place that this happens right now that I still,

the only place that I know that exists that does this is car dealerships. People still shop around for cars because they're looking for the deals because there's this intrinsic way of thinking that car dealers and the salesmen are scumbags. If that's how you're perceived already in your niche, go get into a different niche because you don't want to be in that environment. Every other niche, if you're doing the tactics that Ryan's talking about here, where they're building this rapport and you've already had the social proof, they've already chosen you.

Now, if you just shut up long enough, you just have to use tactical empathy to help with the closing process so we've gotten through the process we shut up we're reporting back to them we're using tactical empathy what is the next step that happens so here's the here is what i call the kill shot of this process the next thing you say to them is charles i got you That's what everyone wants to hear and everything. I got you. Whatever your version of that is, right? I got you. I've worked with hundreds of businesses like yours, which is the truth, right? If you're a professional, if you're brand new to business, you can make something up, right? I've worked with tens, whatever the number is, don't lie, right? but let them know that you understand their problem and that you are on it that that's all we want to hear as human beings is that this guy this gal they're going to take

care of me i don't have to make another call when you tell somebody you can oh even if it's over the phone and you're not in person, you can hear them physically relax. When you say that, like on the, like there'll be an exhale or they'll make a noise. You can hear them shift in their chair because they now are like, Oh, I don't have to make another call. Right. I've worked with hundreds of businesses like yours. I understand what you're going through. Let me explain what happens next. Now, this is something that so many of us forget during a sales process is to explain the process, right? How many opportunities do we lose because we don't tell them it's going to take me two days to get back

to you, or I need to gather X amount of additional information, or there is this one piece of the process that I'm going to have to go do a little work on. And I'm going to need to follow up with you, but I will follow up with you in X amount of time. Then you have to hit you. What you said is expectations, but we have to explain the process. So whatever your process is for your business, you explain it for our business. It would simply be, uh, there are the next thing we need to do is I have to gather a little bit of information from you. There's two ways I can do that. I can gather it over the phone with you right now, or I can send you a simple questionnaire, which you can fill out and send back to me, which would you choose? Put it in, put the power in their hands. Okay. So I'm not forcing them down

the path that I would prefer. I'm allowing them to choose. Now, pushback I get on this part of the process is Ryan. Anytime we send out a, uh, information flyer, no one ever returns it. That's because you haven't done the first step in the process, right? You have not established. You've not listened to them, right? You've not used tactical empathy. You haven't told them that you've got them, that you understand what their problem is and that you're going to be a solution provider. They don't trust you. That's why they don't fill out the form. But if you've made it this far and walk through the process in this way, they trust you, right? They, they believe you're the service

provider. So if they choose, send me the information for my promise, you 90 plus of those people will respond to you. And that was the number for us, about 93% of the people responded to us with our flyer. And almost everyone chose, I'll just fill out the form because no one wants to be on the phone. Okay. So do not force them down a process that's easiest for you. I know that automation and AI and hacks are not great, except you are tossing away good customers because you're not giving them the choice. Now, some choose to do it over the phone, but give them the choice. Okay. Once I gather that information, I go to work. What that means is I am going to take your, your information and shop it out to the carriers that I believe are going to be the best fit for you. I can tell you, there are three

that I know will take your business. And there was one in particular that I really hope you get into their program. Now, this part of it is going to be a little different for everybody, but it is also a keystone to the process because what it says is I understand you and I have the experience and knowledge to understand the marketplace. So whatever that looks like to you. So for me, what that means is there are always three carriers that will take an account, but there is always one that I will prefer them to get into. I never tell them what that market is. I never tell them, don't tell them what that product is specifically. You're not solutioning on this call. All you are doing is establishing that you understand the market

and that if their information, it comes back in a way that fits, there is a specific market that you think is a great fit and you hope that you get them into. Okay. So how does all that sound? Great. Okay. Once I've done my job, I am going to deliver, and this is the last piece of the puzzle of video proposal to you. Now, here's why I recommend video proposals. Okay. I recommend video proposals because of what you just described in the used car sales business. Transparency is paramount, right? We do not want to feel like we're coming from a position of weakness. So what I say to them on the phone and what I train my team to say is the reason we use video proposals is because I want you to know everything that I know

before we talk again. So I am going to break down everything that I get from the carrier and I'm going to send it to you so that you have all the information before we speak again. So that when, when we do speak, we're on the same level. And then I just show up. Also taking advantage of that, what you did before. Again, you made something specifically for them. They're used to seeing you in this environment and now feels customized because you're building a relationship here. Again, you say you're not solution providing here. You're building a relationship. You're getting them to exhale. And so many people, especially in sales, forget that body language is key.

It's not verbal. You're sitting there, you're talking, you want to have that person exhale that I got you moment, that person going, okay, that's important. You're listening for that exhale. And again, as you said, it's either physical or you can hear something or they're letting go in the chair. Once that gets done, they don't really want to talk to you that much anymore. They're like, okay, we got the person we're done. You go do it now. I'm paying you to go do it.

You don't need to educate me. I don't need a full breakdown on this is why this carrier or that carrier, whatever it is. That's I don't care about that. Just do your job. I'm paying you the money. If I wanted to do it, I would go watch YouTube. So being able to have that person exhale and be able to read body language is huge.

I love that you're giving someone, we call it the illusion of choice. We do this with children. Instead of telling your kids to go take a bath and then brush your teeth, you're like, listen, I don't want to fight with you anymore. Do you want to brush your teeth first? Or you want to take a bath first? I don't care. It's up to you.

You win. Now the kid thinks the illusion of choice, it's not a real choice. You're getting them to do whatever they want. And you authentically don't care if they brush their teeth first or take a bath first. You authentically don't care. You're giving them the illusion of choice and you're following up with the entire process here, which is I'm going to build rapport. I'm going to build connection with you. I'm going to show you that I'm the person for you and that you don't have to do any more work. As you said, I got you. Yeah. When you deliver the video proposal, and this is the last piece of the process, when you deliver the video proposal for whatever your product is, right? Whether it's SEO services

for someone's website, a plumbing job, insurance policy. Okay. You don't talk about the thing. You talk about the sales triggers that they gave you in the first questions. So I, so I use, so, um, in the insurance industry, and again, I apologize that I'm being so nuanced insurance industry, but I'm just trying to use that as a microcosm. So when an insurance agent goes out to an insurance carrier, they give them a proposal back. Okay. So I get a proposal. They're usually ugly, terrible branded, the insurance carrier, not my agency. And what most agents do is they take that information and then they retype it into their own proposal and deliver that. I do not recommend that at all. Never because that's not in the, in the essence of transparency. That's not,

that doesn't fit. Right. I want to give them exactly what I got. So I pull up that ugly ass carrier proposal and I don't go through every line and tell them all this. I, I hit the carrier and I go, Hey, uh, so, so, so Charles, I'm so excited. First, it's like, hey, Ryan here, face to the name, great, whatever. And then, hey, we got into that program that I was hoping you'd get into. It's with the Hartford. Hartford's a great company, great on claims. Awesome. Okay. You can see the price here, competitive price, very good. Coverage is great. Here's the million liability or whatever that you need, et cetera. And that's all I'll talk about this particular policy. I then go into whatever

those check marks were. So here's the deal charge. You told me that responsiveness is a key. We have a dedicated maximum two hour turnaround time. We will turn any requests that you have around in two hours. And I'm going to give you a dedicated number, email that you can also text it whenever you need. And we will turn it around in two hours, regardless of the time. Right. And that has to fit your business, but that's what ours was. Right. So you also told me that you wanted to make sure at least on an annual basis that you were hearing for us to make sure that your business had to change and your coverages were right. We have a dedicated process and account manager that will walk you through that I will introduce to you once you become a customer. And so you will have a dedicated rep with a two hour turnaround time so that that

response of this that you need, we're on call for you all the time, bam. So I have spent 15% of the time describing the thing I'm giving them. And the other 85% of the time is about the problems that I heard during the first open-ended question. So I have come all the way back around to literally bang on the triggers that you told me were your problems, which I'm actually going to solve, right? We have to actually solve the problems. It's not a gimmick. And when they get that video proposal, here's what happens. No one opens it during the day ever. No one ever opens it during the day. So when you're trying, when you feel like you're being ghosted, you are because everyone's frigging busy during the day and no one wants to talk to you when they're working.

They want to talk to you at night, but we're not working at night. We're doing what they're doing. We're home with our families. So the reason the video proposal works so incredibly well is because they get to consume that content on their own time. And I use a tool. I use loom for this. And what you get with loom is, you know, when they opened it, you know, how many times they

watched it and you know, whether or not they forwarded it to someone else. Now, here's what I'll tell you. Our average open time was between 5 45 and 8 PM at night. Our videos were watched an average of 2.1 times. And somewhere in the 40s, I'm going to forget the specific percentage, somewhere in the 40s, 40-ish percent of the time, they would forward that video to someone else to look at. And then here's what I would get back.

Let's do it. They wouldn't need another call. They wouldn't need anything else. They would just, let's go. And I would send them an e-doc with everything they needed. They wouldn't need anything else. They would just let's go. And I would send them a e-doc with everything they needed. And I had a new customer. And what this allows us to do is deliver a highly human, highly empathetic, highly transparent process that is valuable, that is on their terms, that is specific to them, that addresses the unique needs that they have told me they have for the

product that I sell. And in this, and I'll give you just final stats on this. When we taught this process to new reps in the first three months that they would come in, they would close about 30 to 40 ish percent of the inbound leads that would come in by By the six month mark, every single one of our sales reps would close 80 plus percent of the qualified inbound leads that would come into our business. And that is how we scaled so fast. I love it. I love the, when we talk about this all the time, what would it be like to be in someone's home and close them there to be able to be welcomed into your potential client's home? And that's what these videos do. You know, we used to talk about it all the time. Imagine being able to lay in bed with your potential client's home. And that's what these videos do. You know, we used to talk about it all the time.

Imagine being able to lay in bed with your potential client. How would that change the ballgame? Well, that's what you're doing by sending these personalized videos. You're physically in bed with them nine times out of 10. Now, if you're, if you're open windows between five and eight, you're sitting on the couch with them. But even that builds a rapport and a connection. That's, that's just, it's huge.

I also like, again, you've talked about this many times and we talked about before we started recording. It's not about me. It's not about you. It's about. I also like, again, you've talked about this many times and we talked about before we started recording, it's not about me. It's not about you. It's about the person. I thought what's going on with them, with their language, their needs. You spent 15% about talking about the solution and then you spent the rest of 85% of it saying, it's about you.

We're going to do this with you. This goes on with relationships and networking. This goes on with relationships. This is human behavior 101. So if you're not implementing these things, you're not going to scale to get to where you're closing in six months, 80%. That's wild. That dude, that's absolutely wild. That's amazing. So the strategy works and we'll break it all down. If someone wants to track you down, if someone's like, listen, Ryan gave me very specific tools and which again, loom is amazing. None of this is sponsored by

anybody. You guys know me. I don't sponsor anything. If someone wants to track you down, if someone wants to get ahold of you and say, holy shit, this is going to change my life. How do I do this? I'm not an insurance. I am a bakery or I am whatever else. If someone wants to track you down, what is the best way for them to find you, to get access to you? How do they do that? So just go to my website. It's ryanhanley.com. That's the best place to start. I have a bunch of free eBooks and this, I'm going to give you and everyone this PDF and they can, they can get this PDF and work through this process,

use it to train your team. If you need help, obviously just reach out. And then I'm Ryan Hanley on all the socials and you can find me there. YouTube's a big one. LinkedIn's a big one, but yeah, just, just DM me. If you have questions, guys, I mean, I'm Ryan Hanley on all the socials and you can find me there. YouTube's a big one. LinkedIn's a big one. But yeah, just DM me if you have questions, guys. I mean, I'm happy to help. And then if you're looking for more, we can always have a deeper conversation.

But if there's something that I can give you quickly that'll help you get through this process, I'm happy to do it. Man, I really appreciate it. You've given tremendous amounts of value that are tactical and step-by-step. You've also brought in human behavior, which always makes me happy. I'm always a human behavior guy. I really appreciate it. Thank you so very much for being on the show. It's such a pleasure, man. Thank you. And that's a wrap on another episode of the I Am Charles Schwartz Show. We hope Ryan Hanley's

journey from insurance industry underdog to digital marketing maverick has lit a fire under your content creation efforts. A massive thank you to Ryan for pulling back the curtain on his strategies. Your insights into the power of authentic content and innovative sales techniques are helpful to fellow entrepreneurs out there. To our listeners,

your hunger for growth and marketing mastery is what fuels our passion for bringing you these transformative conversations. We're deeply appreciative of your continued support. If you're itching to implement the strategies we unpacked today, you won't want to miss Ryan's companion guide. It's a goldmine of actionable insights, including step-by-step guides on creating your content engine,

mastering the one-call close, and leveraging video proposals for unparalleled sales success. Secure your copy of the companion guide at podcast.imcharlesschwartz.com. It's your personal roadmap to content marketing dominance. Remember, your expertise is your secret weapon. So go out there, answer those burning questions your audience is asking, and watch your business skyrocket. Until next time, keep creating, keep innovating, and above all, keep scaling.