The Ryan Hanley Show - INS 003 - Nicholas Ayers on How to Hack Human Behavior

Episode Date: November 20, 2019

Became a Master of the Close: https://masteroftheclose.comEntrepreneur and insurance agency owner, Nicholas Ayers, joins the podcast to explain how to hack human behavior to grow your business. Get more here: https://ryanhanley.comLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Ryan Hanley Show and today we are talking with the, I want to say wonderful, I want to say tremendous, just incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking Nicholas Ayers, the founder of Made You Look Marketing, one of the premier, if not the premier, insurance advertising course program, I want to say. We'll say philosophical and tactical system for actually getting real leads that produce real results into your agency. And we go into what that means. So if you haven't picked up on it, this is an insurance specific podcast. Although you will see that whether you're in the insurance industry or not, the core principles that we discuss around marketing, branding,

advertising, lead generation are ubiquitous. It does not matter what industry you're in. And we actually use examples from both the mortgage industry, the real estate industry, and I can tell you firsthand, financial advisors, CPAs, lawyers, really any professional organization or enterprise that falls under the professional designation could take real tactical and core principles from this episode. It's a ton of fun just because we dive into a bunch of different topics, all of which are going to help you grow your business if you're willing to do the work. Before we get on to the show though, I want to just give you my quick CTA, my call to action. My friends, if this is your very first time with my show, I would love for

you to subscribe. There is just tons of great content that we've already produced all the way back to the very first episode, my master class in communication that I did with Marcus Sheridan. And then through that episode up until the one you're listening to, just incredible thought leaders, incredible people sharing what they do with you. So I hope you subscribe. And if you're someone who's listened to this show for more than one episode and you enjoy this work, you want more people to find it, you think there are more individuals out there who would benefit from having these conversations in their earbuds, please head on over to iTunes, leave me a rating and review, just

algorithmically, that's how more people find this show. Thank you for listening. I love you for listening. Now let's get on to Nick Ayers. It gets, you know, when you're stuck in an office for 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day, you know, but it feels like seven days a week. Yeah. You have to try to do some sort of change of pace a little bit every once in a while. So yeah, I'll change up the lighting configuration a little bit. And I don't know, it just makes me feel like I'm in a different spot sometimes. Yeah, I feel that. I feel that. I, I, sometimes I sit on the right side of the kitchen table and sometimes I sit on the left side of the kitchen table and you know it feels like

yeah it feels you might as well be like you know on a beach somewhere at that point I uh I have an office downstairs we're actually moving in like month. That's why I'm sitting at my kitchen table that, and for the last almost year, I haven't needed to sit at the kitchen table. But my wife's like, well, we have this office that we built you downstairs. Like, why don't you work there? And I'm like, because it's in the basement

and we only get so much nice weather here and like the sun's out. So I want to be up where the sun is because it's dark and cold yeah where are you guys moving do you guys stay in the same city you guys moving yeah i'm literally moving like two and a half miles from where i live right now don't you uh don't you go to i see you like in your vlogs if you go like to a co-working space right it looks really cool the brick background and all that stuff yeah it's called the troy innovation garage the place actually is pretty sweet um it's run by a buddy of mine uh who was

in the PR business and just fell in love with the idea of co-working and put his company in this co-working space that he kind of built up around it and then um now he is kind of transitioning out of the PR world and is building these co-working spaces. And he gives them, like each one he gives, like, so the one in Troy is called the Troy Innovation Garage. He has one in Albany, New York called the Bull Moose Club. And I think he's looking at a couple other cities right now to build another one. And he wants to take this concept where it's a co-working space, but it's not like a WeWork, which nothing against WeWork, but they're all, you know, if you've been in one, you kind of know what the setup is. Like these are very specific and unique to the culture of whatever that town is. So, uh, I, uh, I tried doing the coworking space thing and I feel, uh, like it has to fit a certain type of person. Um, at least maybe, I don't know if they're all built the same,

but I went into one, I gave it a good year of being in a co-working space. And it's just, it's, I don't know, sometimes it's hard if you're used to, if you're not used to working with a lot of ambient people walking around and talking and stuff, it's a challenge like to be in an open space, I feel. Because, you know, if you're on the phone at all, or if you're trying to focus and you've got, you know, everybody is, you know, raving about the newest kombucha in the kitchen or something. It's just hard. I don't know. Maybe I'm just not built for a coworking space.

But they're too distracting. I don't think you're wrong. I think it definitely takes work. So I – no, I do. I do. I think it takes – I think it takes like you have to be – I do agree with you. You have to be the right kind of person. If you are – so in general, I do not not I have to be in the right mood for small talk

Like even though I think probably to a certain extent my public persona maybe that I'm an extrovert I am I really don't enjoy talking to random If I'm in the right mood or I'm in that Version of Who I am then I love it and it's of who I am, then I love it. And it's great. And I love talking to people and ask them questions and it's awesome. But I'd say most of the time, I just like people to leave me alone so I can do my stuff. I find it just to be exhausting. I actually went to a 40th birthday party on Saturday of a friend of mine and it was fun. And after an hour and a half, I looked at my wife and she looked at me and I was like, I'm good. Like I've had enough. 90 minutes of fun is enough for me.

Like nothing against my buddy. Like I'm happy for him. I had had enough small talking and it was like, I'm tired to go. But, uh, uh, long story short, um, I have been a member of that. Uh, I had been a member of that coworking space been a member of that co-working space since three months before they opened. So there's literally like holes in the floor, like jackhammers going off. And I just throw like noise canceling. I have these old Bose noise canceling headphones. And it's like, whap, I can be put into another world. So that's how I've made it work.

But it definitely can be distracting at times. And some people don't get the clue. No, no. I feel like for most people, it's how I've made it work. But it definitely can be distracting at times. And some people don't get the clue. No, no. I feel like for most people, it's like a social club. Like they just go there. They'd rather, instead of going to the bar, they're like, I'll just come here for eight hours a day. And I'm not an alcoholic if I do this.

And so they go to the bar or they go to the co-working space. And it's just a social event. At least it was my experience. And I don't know just the aesthetic of seeing like people moving around and stuff it's like i gotta vote and maybe that's a bad thing like you're right it does take a lot of work because if i'm focused on my computer like last thing i want to see is a bunch of people you know doing somersaults or something because whatever i don't need to see that you know i also feel like an man, like get off my lawn type guy. Like, no, I think, well, I do. Here's what I would say. I think that I do think as you get more mature into your career

and I don't want to say older, cause I don't know that it has anything to do with it. But I do think as you become, as you be, as you mature into your career, you start to understand the habits and routines that allow you to be the most effective version of yourself. And if performance or some level of performance, if you're holding yourself to that, anything that breaks those habits, you know, you don't appreciate as much because it just, it takes you away from being able to do your best work. And, you know, if I'm away from the coworking space for a while and I go back, there is an adjustment period. If I'm there all the time, then I just can give people that

look like don't F with me like I'm in the middle of something. Or I'll just straight be like, yo, man, I got something to do like and what you mean? Or you just have to say that to some people. Jeff Lerner, Yeah, that is that is you have well, you have the luxury of that East Coast kind of stereotypical attitude like everybody gets it. Yeah. Yeah, you can also get prick socially acceptable yeah yeah you get a prick it's socially acceptable to be to be a prick to people and and they just have to deal with it um and and that is

one of the advantages to being on the east coast is you're just like look man i got these things to do like go figure go you know, you're, you're, you're a guy that I've obviously, uh, followed your work for a long time. We've, you know, gotten to know each other and that's been fun. Um, especially we got to know each other a lot better after I, uh, after I took a, I took a solid swing at your organization. Um, misinformed, but, but certainly a solid swing. I forgot all about, honestly, I forgot all about that until you just brought that up. Yeah. Well, you know what? I was thinking about it the other day. I was like,

I was just thinking about our interactions and stuff in the industry. And obviously, my mind's been, I've just had, you know, I've been in a new space now that I'm kind of back working with insurance industry in general and starting to help some people on a consulting basis. Like it, it, and then I, we had our call coming up and I wanted to talk to you cause you have so much going on that I'm interested in. And I was like, man, I, you know, we were kind of knew each other and then peripherally, right? Peripherally. Yeah. Like I knew of your work I I had seen it and uh and thought it was good and then um what was on on agency nation radio with marty I I took a swing at ia

away and uh and he reached out to me well funny so grant who I just had on yeah uh grant batma so to people listening you know the players uh grant who was on one or two episodes ago he came at me hard on twitter like real hard like yeah you know real aggressive and you were more diplomatic you're like yo man i think you have some misconceptions what we're all about let's get on the phone so then you and i got on the phone from like probably an hour an hour and a half whatever it was and then after that i was like i'm good and i think i went on the next episode and was like i was misinformed like i had heard some things and you know lesson learned don't. Don't, you know, get to know. That's a, I remember, I remember that now. And, uh, you know, speaking of like Grant, like Grant's like the perfect person. Uh, he's, uh, he's very,

uh, intellectual and he's very, um, strategic and like he can strategically think of words right on the spot. And, um, I think, you know, he you know he he won't probably admit a lot of this but you know he's like one of the worst people to get in an argument with or to get into a uh a verbal battle with because he'll for i've seen him do this others i've seen him just completely annihilate people in the nicest way possible and i'm like man i wish i had that gift because for me i'm just when i want to like bulldoze or something i just bulldoze over and i'm like a bull in a China closet half the time. And he has a way of making you feel really dumb. That's one of the reasons why I really like

hanging out with him because, you know, that sounds bad to say, but he has a way of making people feel like inadequate. And he's not, I don't think he's trying to intentionally do that. It just comes off that way. And so, uh, yeah, I actually remember all that and um you know i think we it's a struggle we all face like you um we were younger it was probably a couple years ago now i think probably four years ago yeah you just you're young and you're dumb and you just kind of do stuff i tell people so all the time i'm gonna ride the young and dumb thing as long as I possibly can. Yeah. You know, what it taught me to was, um, uh, I definitely was still very bought into the tribalism of like the national big guy and stuff like that. And, and just these, um, things that today I detest about our industry, not, not does it,

that's not meant to be shot at the association, just tribalism in general are things that I, I, I just detest. And, um, I actually read this, I just sharedism in general, are things that I just attest. And I actually read this, I just shared it on Twitter, actually, this awesome article today, how empathy is killing social discourse, that there have been three consecutive studies over the last seven years that have found almost the exact same thing. The more empathetic you are, the more apt you are to feel actual joy when someone who's outside your empathy group is in pain. And the whole point of these studies is like, how can you have people on both sides of a conversation who would classify themselves as very empathetic you know i mean ultimately hate like literally hate uh with a passion this this other group like how can you how do those two things work in the

same because you think if i'm an empathetic person i'm empathetic to everyone and what they found is that's actually not the case that the more empathetic you consider yourself to be, the less empathetic you are to anyone who you consider outside of your circle. Yeah. So I think tribalism and the herd mentality, I think it's something you have to always fight against because it's innate in us. It's how we've survived for hundreds of thousands of years is by getting together in a group of people that we find similar interests or affinities with. And we think, okay, if I'm friends with this person, then when the barbarians come over the hill, they're not going to kill me. You know, this person's going to protect me. And, you know, so it's like, it's natural in us to feel that way. And it's natural for us to feel empathy towards people with similar affinities. I have a lot of empathy for a lot of people who fit my criteria and mode of what is, you know, subjectively right or wrong.

And but for the people that are outside that, I'm like, well, go screw yourself, you know. Yeah. Figure it out for yourself. So I think there's a lot of truth in that. Yeah. It's just it's interesting to me. So not that that tangent is very important. At that time, you know, I was also, I think I, that conversation was in some ways a very pivotal moment in my own career because it made me step back and reevaluate where I was receiving information from and the filters with which I passed that information through. Because I said, you know, this, I mean, this was literally days after I had published that podcast.

I had had the conversation with you. It happened pretty quickly. And I said, How can I have felt so strongly one day, three days ago, and today I feel completely and utterly different after, you know what I mean? And if I had actually met you in person, before, you know, I'd heard some of the things that I had heard, I would have never even gone down that path, I would have gone, Hey, man, like, I'm hearing something like, what's up with that, we would have talked about it, you would explain exactly what you would explain to me heard, I would have never even gone down that path. I would have gone, Hey man, like I'm hearing something like what's up with that. We would have talked about it. You would explain exactly what you would explain to me. And I would have been up and gone, you know, man, some people are saying some things about this, but here's what I know is actually, you know, so it's like, it definitely changed the way I personally filtered information and, you know,

kind of thought before I spoke, I guess you could say. So it was, you know, whether intentional or not, a very educational moment for me in my life. Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's been great since then, right? We've taken those lessons and we've applied them to other things now. And, you know, I think,, like it's, it's made our relationship better. Right. I mean, so it's, I think that that's, I think it's been, I think it was a good thing. I actually kind of forgot about it until you just kind of brought it up there. So that's, yeah, but I forget what I did yesterday half the time.

So, well, I, you know, I, I probably reflect on things too much. I try to, I try to not make the same mistake twice as much as possible. Um, except I keep rooting for the bills. Um, that that's a mistake I'll probably make for the rest of my life. But, um, you know, I, I try to not, I try very hard not to do that. Um, that's just something that it really bothers me personally when I, when I small little things that, you know, like things happen, but like big major things that if you had taken a moment to think about you could have not made that mistake twice sure so I do tend to reflect on those things quite a bit but none of this is actually why we had I want to have

you on the show other than I just enjoy conversating with you yeah um the last few years I guess since that moment has had I mean you're um I mean, you've created some new projects. You've changed the state that you live in. You've just had some major changes. And I also think, you know, there's been this interesting movement in the industry, and maybe this is the best place to start, speaking specifically about the insurance industry, is that you have made you look marketing. There's a video advertising, marketing, community, coursework. I think you even do some consulting stuff. We'll talk about all that as we go. But you're driving. You're one of the driving thought leaders and really practitioners around taking your message into the digital space and how to do that in a

very strategic and tactical way that produces results, not kind of the fluffy, you know, hey, you should do a YouTube video kind of thing. Like, here's how you actually do it. Here's how it produces results. Very, very boots on the ground, tangible stuff. And you're one of the pioneers of that. And at the same time, you know, I'm here, I've been gone from the industry for nine months, and I step back in. And I'm hearing, you know, it was funny, like being gone nine months, for some reason, I came back and I was like, you know, I'm gonna come back and things are gonna be so much different. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know why I thought that that would be the case. But I was like,? Yeah, I know. I know. But I just was, I come back in and like, oh my God, like, what do you mean you're not doing that? Like, it's been nine months. Like, that feels like the right answer to me. And there's, why, like, why?

Why are we still questioning, like, automation, putting your message out into the marketplace, like having at least a digital component to your business. Why, you know, from where you sit, why are we even still having this should we debate? Not, you know, it feels like we should be into how or who helps us or where do we put it? Not, but we're still questioning, should we? And that boggles my mind. Yeah. You know, I, and honestly, maybe, maybe we're seeing the same thing from a little bit different perspective. I actually see it as improving, to be honest with you. I mean, I remember five years ago, the word automation was like this. It was this foreign concept. And today it's this, now it's this really third rail buzzword that people don't even know what it means, but they get really excited about it. And so I think I do think that there's growth in that arena.

I remember sitting in an event in San Antonio was one of our very first conferences and, you know, we had 120 people in the room and the word automation came up and it was like people saw you know it was like wizard of oz they see color for the very first time um and now you know we have everybody that is automate you know the people who are automating a lot of things do i think the the tide is completely shifted no i still think that i think that it's there's still a lot of work to be done on a lot of fronts whether it's automation whether it's marketing but you also i mean and and maybe this is one perspective out of many but you know a lot of people that I talked to have been in the industry for a really long time. They were in the industry building their agencies in the yellow page era, in the bus stop advertising era, in the newsletter era. And not that those eras are still all completely gone, but it is

different, but they built their agency in a much different model and they grew relatively well. They grew relatively fast in a different era. And now, you know, there's almost this need, I don't need to do that because it's approached two places. One, a place of fear of learning something. I don't want to go have to learn Spanish, but if you drop me off in the middle of Tijuana, I better pick it up pretty fast. And, you know, there's this, this ignorance that I don't need to do this. And, you know, I didn't, I didn't have to build my agency this way. Well, the time has shifted and times have shifted and communications changed more in the last five years than it did 50 years combined previously. And so I think there's still a lot of that. I think a lot of people are just still content with, and honestly, I don't fault

people for that. I mean, that's exactly where I want to get. I want to get to a spot where I'm content too. And whether or not I ever get there is completely different. But I think that I do, I do see positive shifts. Words that we use today weren't used years ago. You know, today, the big word is, is data. Like that wasn't something that anybody thought about one year ago, two years ago, three years ago. Now everybody thinks about it. Automation is the same way. Marketing, I feel, is on that path as well.

People know that they need to do something. I think where they get lost is there's so much coming at them from different perspectives. There's so many shiny objects that you don't know where to begin. And it's paralyzing and people would rather stay put, bury their heads in the sand than actually, you know, take a step in a certain direction. I see this a lot with, with, with people that I work with. I mean, people who pay money, they still come in paralyzed and, you know, we've had to adjust some things, but I think, I do think it's getting better. Not at the rate that you and I would want, but I do, I do see it improving.

So where do they begin? Because I, I, I agree with you. I think this is, I think in many ways, I think you, I think you nailed the two things. It's, Hey man, I'm making $300,000 in personal income. You know, my wife's got a new car. You know, we have a house down in Florida. I get to play golf. I do some work. My kid's college is taken care of. Why, what do I need to do? Like, what do I, why do I have to kill myself with this new thing? So I think that's hard. And God bless him. I think that's a great spot to be in. And depending how

long you want to ride that wave. Yeah. If you're only someone who wants to be in the industry for another couple of years and then you sell or whatever, man, yeah, I'd be right there. I mean, honestly, I'd be right there with you. Like, let's go golfing, even though I don't golf. But, you know, for the most part- You could just rollerblade alongside them

as they're playing golf. I just rollerblade, man. I'll rollerblade with the drink cart, man. You know, it's all good. No, I think that the majority of the industry is not there. And that's it's, it's, it's all good. No, I think that, uh, majority of the industry is not there and that's not what they're doing. Right. A lot of agency owners struggle. I mean, the majority of agency owners struggle. Uh, and so they have to, they have to start somewhere for me. Uh, I think it's really easy to say, uh, and it's just a mistake that I see a lot

of people fall into a trap is they want to learn mechanisms and they think they want to learn mechanisms. They want to learn Facebook. They want to use, they want to learn Google. They want to learn email. They want to learn automation. And I think all that stuff is very tangible, nice stuff, but it's really just the fruit of what's, what's growing on the tree. And I think the tree has to be rooted in deeper, deeper things than that. So for me, like someone who nerds out on this stuff, I, I spent some time figuring out tinkering, know what buttons to click, but really I spend my time trying to learn human behavior, psychology, persuasion, how to apply those things in what I write and what I say, not just in the marketing side, but the sales side and learning, okay,

this is the mindset that people have. How do I overcome that? How do I, you know, with this mindset is going to come this series of objections. Why do they think this? Why is it that they want what they have? How do they, how are they going to envision themselves with the results that we're trying to get them? And so I think when you learn things, I think this is applicable to any industry is learning just human psychology. And I know it sounds weird, but I think when you learn things, I think this is applicable to any industry, is learning just human psychology. And I know it sounds weird, but I think when you learn how people behave, then who cares? You know, I had this conversation with somebody the other day. I said, you know, advertising

was around before the internet. It's hard to believe, but it was. And marketing was around before the internet and they relied on different things and different tactics. When you learn, when you understand how, how people behave and why they make decisions. And, you know, we're talking about the herd mentality, you know, how to, how to think about that, you know, from the whole picture, from the whole big picture, then screw the platforms, you know, tomorrow a new platform is going to come out.

You can figure that out relatively easily. But, you know, learning how people behave and learning how to put that into words or into sequences is going to be, I think, where you have more success. And so that's a bigger picture thing. And most people don't want to devote themselves to learning that stuff. But really, it's the best thing that's going to help you, not just from an inbound, but from an outbound, from a sales standpoint, from how you just talk to people on your team standpoint. I think that it's really critical. Do you think that's one of the defining characteristics between, say, I don't want to just say agency owners, but just an insurance professional who has figured out how to put themselves in a place of relative comfort or sustainability versus an insurance professional who has not understanding human

behavior that is? Well, yeah, I think that if you want to grow and you want to improve, I think that that's what you need to do. I mean, I think there's probably a lot of successful agency owners that probably have figured that out, right? As it pertains to the insurance vertical, you tell them a number of objections, they'll tell you exactly why that person's probably thinking that way and they'll know how to overcome it. So I think that there's things that maybe that they inherently have developed without maybe even knowing that they've developed them. And I would say that that's probably what causes people to have success. But I think it's how people in the industry, outside the industry, how anybody

has success in communicating. And I think everybody has a different style. My style is completely different than most people's style. And there's a lot of intentional, I would say there's 95% intentional thought into why I do things. It just fits me as a human being. And it wouldn't be good for other people to replicate. But I think that it's definitely a skill set that you have to, you have to learn and you have to develop and you have to, you have to do it with trial and error. Yeah. You know, I've come back to my father-in-law a lot because I feel like I was blessed in many ways to have him as the person who taught me this industry, because one, he's very old school and how he goes about things, but he's also been incredibly successful. And if you were to ask him, I mean,

he would have, there is no way that he has ever studied human behavior. That being said, his ability to adapt a story or a pitch or a mechanism of the experience that he provides in his agency to someone based on the way that they respond to certain things like their human behavior is uncanny. And he just developed it by digging deeper into the business and wanting to understand that next layer, never actually reading about it, but just listening to people reacting and, you know, hearing no a bunch of times and figuring out how to get closer to yes. And, you know, that I, I am concerned, and I'm very interested in your take on this. I'm concerned that we're losing that, that the, the rush towards marketing, we forget that you still have to sell. And to me, the individuals that I see

who seem to have the deepest understanding of human behavior, whether that's spending time actually in some sort of learning or literature or deep practice to learn it, or it has just come from trial and error over time and focusing on it. That those people tend to be from a sales function because it's because it's, you know, kill, you know, you either kill it or you don't eat, right? And I worry that the farther we remove ourselves from actual sales from actually that the majority that we're going to start to lose that I'm not going to say you have to lose it because I don't I don't think that's the case I'm saying just that natural tendency away from sales in some regard and more of a reliance on advertising and marketing we could we could start

to lose that a little bit do you think there's anything to that oh for sure I see I mean I see it in the insurance industry I see it in every industry you know I have the privilege of having my foot in other you know seeing observing from the outside in how other people in other niches and other verticals approach us. And it's all the same thing, right? We get caught up in the vanity metrics of now we've accomplished something, right? I, you know, from a literal standpoint, I have an ad running and it's getting a lot of views and it's getting a lot of impressions and people are clicking over to it. And I'm even generating a lot of leads. I got leads for a dollar. Right. How much money are you making? I mean, that's really at the end of the day,

what it should be about. Those things should help facilitate and do that. And most people, they don't. Now, keep in mind, I also talked to a lot of people who will make a lot of money and do really well with the same thing. And there's like this chasm, this separation between those who understand that and those who are just in it for the vanity metrics. The people that are actually focused on revenue, and we all think we are, but I think our actions dictate that we're not. And I ask people who generate, say, leads, right? And actions dictate that we're not. And, you know, I asked

people, you know, who generate say leads, right. And I'll say, well, how many times do you, I see this a lot, like in the mortgage, this is a good example. I'll throw somebody else under the bus, uh, in the mortgage vertical, uh, mortgage lenders, I would say sometimes fall even below the, they're, they're a layer below on the totem pole of what I call laziness, um, you know, in financial services, because they're not used to having to sell anything. They get referrals from real estate agents and, you know, they'll generate leads and they'll, I'll say, Oh great. How many, you know, how many applications have you taken? How many pre-approvals have you,

have you done? Well, I haven't gotten any. Okay, well let's dive into that. What, what's your followup process like? How many phone calls are you making? Well, I make a call and I leave a message and you know, I have to leave a message, maybe I'll shoot an email and so on. Great. When's the next phone call? Well, you know, I'll call him then, you know, maybe the next day. It's very like, there's nothing systematic about it. There's nothing, there's nothing intensive about it. There's nothing, it's very, it's very up in the air and kind of gray. And you see that results and it's but we get so excited on well I've done this I've accomplished this but that's great and that's that's a nice vanity metric that

you have but what are the actual the real results aren't the what you've accomplished on the ad or the lead but it's what you what you've deposited in your bank account and that's what sales does and sales is not just um you know me tricking you into you know buying something that's what sales does. And sales is not just, you know, me tricking you into, you know, buying something. That's not what sales is. That's actually the worst part of it. That's the complete opposite of sales. Sales is a very long process of, you know, people going from a series of being completely unaware to aware to making a decision and believing that that decision is going to give them the result

that's going to solve an internal problem in their lives. And they're so bought in to that solution that it could be a $1 or it could be a million dollars. If they really feel like it's going to solve a real problem internally for them, then they're going to do whatever they can. They're going to beg, borrow, steal, sell blood, perform tricks on the corner in order to get the result that is really going to solve an internal problem for them. And so I think there is a real separation there. And I do think that the successful people understand that. They understand that it's not just about the vanity metrics, but it's about, you know, the actual results that those metrics are supposed to provide. And insurance agents fall into the trap. They, you know, you, I, you can't go on my Facebook without seeing somebody posting about and bragging about

that. They got $1 leads or 50 cent leads. It's great. Awesome. Congratulations. Let's talk about, you know, the results on the backend, you know, what that actually means. I mean, I tell people, people ask me all the time, well, Nick, what do you do with your ads? I tell people I'm lucky if I close 20% of them, 20%. And that's because out of a hundred, you know, 50 of them, I can call them every single day and email them every single day until Jesus returns. They're never going to pick up the phone. They ghost me. 30 of them lied and 20 of them become actual customers. And so, you know, that's the real reality that nobody wants to talk about, but it is a separator. Yeah. That's why the

lead business is so hard. Um, you know, I learned that I, you know, we learned that the hard way through trustandchoice.com, you know, when I was doing that work, that was, I mean, you, you want to get, you want to get punched in the face every day. It was that business because that was SEO based leads. So you're working really, really hard to get them. They're not really of the volume, but your hope is that they're of higher quality, right? That's what you're hoping the trade off. That's right. The intent is going to trump all that, right? Yes. So then you listen to the phone calls that happen.

And they're hostage negotiations oh my god it was like it was almost like the and there were and i this is not an exaggeration in hundreds if not thousands of cases the phone because because we listened to a lot of the phone calls to try to figure out what we were doing wrong you know what i mean yeah um you likely weren't doing anything wrong and uh you know i i i'm not i people, I don't believe I'm a very good salesperson. I rant and I ramble. I say things on the phone. I shouldn't say I give up too easily on it. I'm not very good. So I always tell people, don't look at me as the example of sales. Like I'm not Grant Cardone here. And, but it's, it's weird when I analyze phone calls, either from people on our

team or people that we work with. And it's, they, they, they come to me, they go, Nick, I can't have any success with these. Okay. Well, let's, let's dive in. Let's listen to the phone call. The phone call is, you know, and using mortgage, you can, as example, it's okay. What's your social security number? How much can you afford to pay right now? You don't have a down payment. It's like, it's like, it's a ransom call. You might as well put the machine over the thing and be like, I have a million dollars. That's basically what it ought to be like. It's no difference. There's no rapport. There's no relationship building. Marketing is all about relationship building. That's all it is. A funnel is nothing but a relationship

builder. It's not this mystic, weird thing. And it's not some scientific formula either. It's nothing. It is, all it is, is I'm building relationship and building rapport. Whether I do that through a series of text messages, emails, phone calls, in-person visits, direct mail. How am I building a relationship with this audience? And how do I get them to pay attention to me? How do I get them to turn their head, you know, to look at what I'm doing? And how do I actually solve a real internal problem? That's all marketing is. And I feel like we've made it this, A, there's two sides of it. We made it this mystical thing. Like it's the force. And the other thing is we've made it like it's the scientific formula.

Like I just, it's a calculator and that's neither are correct. It's just, how do I build a relationship with people? And if you use Facebook, if you use Google, if you use direct mail, if you telemarket, if you show up at community events and craft fairs and whatever, like that's, all it is and yeah that's all it should be it's setting expectations and then when you talk to them you're delivering on the expectations that you set and it's it's just funny to me how many people try to make it so that the person doesn't want to buy insurance for them like like they they approach the call as like a series of, of like tumblers. It's almost like, like Raider. It's almost like the last crusade where, where,

where Indiana Jones has got to run through the different, and they're just, it's like, we have this prize, which is the thing that you actually want, but we're going to make you run through this obstacle course of challenges in order to get there. We're not going to take your hand. We're not going to give you the guidebook. We're going to like just blindfold you and send you into a, into a minefield. Yeah. Let's hope that those things don't chop your head off in the meantime. Right. Yeah. If you make it to their side, then congratulations. Now you got to pick the right, right, right cup. And if you fail then, then, no it's true it's um and that's why i think you know and i feel like that's a mistake that happens when you just focus so much on the on the mechanism instead of the the actual bigger

picture and you know you focus on the mechanism you're you're bound to do this thing you get so caught up in chatbots you get so caught up in facebook ads so so caught up like just build relationships with people just yeah people have internal struggles and internal problems and that's why they buy things to solve internal problems and you know insurance is a wonderful thing to solve real internal problems if it's presented right and i feel like we just get lost in the and it's cool because it's cool to say i get caught's cool. Cause it's cool to say, I get caught up in that stuff. It's cool to say, I have this thing. I have this thing. I have, it is cool. You know, if it's, if it's a hobby, but if you're not making money,

that's all it is. It's just a hobby. Exactly. So in, in your work in, in the, in the, the, uh, made you look marketing world side of your life. How do you start to break that down for people? Like when they join the group, they bought in, they're in, they want to be part of it. They want to start using video and everything to advertise and market their business and drive new opportunities in. And you can tell immediately that that person is too caught up in, Hey, Nick's going to teach me YouTube ads and not in all the stuff that it goes into before.

How do you start to break down those barriers? How do you start to change that mindset? Um, so that they don't, they're not just throwing stuff up there. That's never actually going to produce any results for them. Yeah. Um, This is actually something that we had to address within the last couple of months because there was a few things. There was that aspect, right? Of people who came in and had a certain mindset already pre-programmed. But then there was a lot of people who we were seeing coming in that would struggle to take a first step and they got really excited. They, they, they, they saw the problem. They understood how to solve the problem, but they didn't know how to take a first step.

They got paralyzed. And so one of the things that we started doing is we said, okay, uh, we have to boil us down to the most simple, most simplest things. And how do we get get momentum started in people? So what we started doing is I believe that the most important aspect of marketing, as we know, marketing is, is, is words towards, it's what you say. It's what people read. It's, it's those words that have that elicit emotional responses that trigger

emotional responses in the brain. They get them to want to either see that there's a problem or get so fired up about wanting to solve the problem. And so what we did is we said, okay, let's, let's, let's take this one step at a time. And the very first thing we need to do, you, you, you, you know, you sign up for our program. The first thing we're going to do is we need to hear your offer. We need to understand your offer. We need to understand your pitch. We need to understand, we need to boil that down. We have to perfect that. You can have the greatest ad on any platform. It could be the most well-designed. It could be the best expression of an ad. But if the words aren't good, then your results are going to be poor.

On the flip side, you can have the ugliest looking, maybe gritty, ugly, just whatever. But if the words elicit the right responses in people, then, and that's why I always say, this is a design aspect that I've used just in my years of being in design is simple is always better. Simple, clean, there's nothing wrong with white space because it's the words and the message and the offer that's going to be the most important thing. And so the, the, where we have to always, well, we always have to put in the most amount of work with anybody is we need to polish the offer. We have to write the script. I don't care how you film it. I don't care if you film it in an office with fluorescent light. I mean, I kind of do, but an office with fluorescent lights and no

microphone. We need to really make sure that the offer is right. Because it's going to be the offer that people hear or that they read that's going to make that, it's going to give them buy-in. It's going to make them think that, okay, this is going to solve a problem. I have this problem. I know I have this problem. I have this problem when it going to solve a problem. I have this problem. I know I have this problem. I have this problem when it comes to protecting my family. I have this problem when it comes to, I'm mis-exposed, whatever the case might be. And we dial that in. And in there, we take, it's like that scene from episode four of Star Wars. It's, you know, Luke is shooting with the little blasters and puts a blindfold down. And finally he can deflect the blasters. And he goes, I finally did see something. And Obi-Wan goes, great, you've taken your first step in a much larger world.

And we have to get the ball rolling in that way. And if we can kind of get people to understand their offer, and it's different for every insurance agent, right? Your value proposition is another way of thinking about your offer. What is your real value proposition? How do you actually solve internal struggles with your ideal customer? It could be with technology. It could be with ease of use. It could be with price. It could be with experience. I don't care what it is. You will have a, you have a very unique value proposition that is the core of your offer. And if we can figure that out and put that in the right structure, put that in the right framework, then you can have great results. And that, and then putting, you know, talking into

a camera or whatever is a lot different. You're a lot less intimidated when you really understand, really believe yourself and the offer that you're presenting and how it's going to change someone's life. And so that's where we start. First base is all, not even for the batter's box is the offer. The batter's box that we get lined up in is what are we going to say? Why are we saying it this way? Why are we using these words? Why are we structuring it this way? Why are we delivering this value upon this value upon this value? And when we understand that, then I don't care what you throw down, we're going to knock it out of the park. And so that's where we focus. And I think that's where a lot of people get it wrong is their offer and how it's communicated. And insurance and financial services, it's a

challenge because mainly you're dealing with people who don't think this way. They're not programmed this way. And that's fine. No wrong there. But it's very logical it's very it's very uh systematic insurances and you know you buy this product to protect against this and really insurance should be the most emotion one of the most emotional bias that there is you should be i hear people all the time talk about it's hard to to do this for insurance no insurance. Insurance is a very emotionally charged, should be emotionally charged buying decision. And if you can tap into that with your offer, with your words, you can really have something there. And that's not the sexy part, right? I mean, I'm assuming that's why most people don't do that naturally. No, that's not the sexy part.

That's not the sexy part. The sexy part is, what is my lighting? What picture am I using? That's the sexy part, the gimmicks, the smoke and mirrors. And there's not a place for that. But like most things in life, I feel like we minor on the majors and major on the minors. And successful advertisers in every vertical understand that you know, that it's not about the, I mean, Agora publishing, you know, sells well over a billion dollars of product a year through newsletters, long form newsletters. They're the, they're at the pinnacle of, you know,

in the copywriting world, everybody, you know, they're like the, they're like the wizard and the wizard of Oz. And, you know, they're not using Facebook ads.'re not using youtube ads they're using newsletters who cares about the medium who cares about the sexy stuff you know let's let's let's boil it down to why people make buying decisions and understanding that i learned from don miller um i mean i happen to be in don miller's masterrand. And, you know, one of the things he, he always talks about is nobody walks in the direction of a cloud. We always, even against our better judgment, walk in the direction of that, which is made most clear to us. And people always make decisions that solve internal problems. They don't make decisions.

You and I don't make decisions, Ryan, on things that just solve external problems. You know, if I let my grass grow to my waste and I haven't mowed it, if it was a real external problem, I would have probably solved it a long time ago. I would have went out and got a lawnmower and mowed my grass. But I go out and buy the lawnmower because I'm tired of seeing the way the neighbors look at me and how it makes me feel inside. I feel embarrassed. I feel like, you know, some schlep, some lazy bum who can't even mow his yard. Then I go by the lawnmower. I'm solving an internal problem because I don't want to feel that way anymore. And I think that that's something that if insurance agents, if anybody can grasp that concept, that when you're selling a product like insurance, a non-tangible product, people are buying it because they want it to solve internal struggles. They'll tell you price, and for a lot of people it is price, but why price? What is that cost savings going to do for them? How is that going to solve anything in their life? How is that going to make their life better?

If you can go just a level deeper and ask why, why, why, why price? Why is saving money important? Why, why is, why do you want to have more time with your family? Why, if you can solve, if you can solve for that, then I feel like you can take most offers and you can make them really attractive to people. And I think that's where a lot of people get lost because it's not sexy. People don't want to think about that stuff. They just want to know what words do I say? What's the frame? What's the copy and paste solution? And it's destructive. Honestly, it's good. It's good for training wheels. It's good to know how to put reps in, but at the end of the day, you're going to have to figure that out for your audience. Yeah. You know, I, I have, I would like to think of myself as like a empathetic person, but I don't know that I actually am.

Because I have these Machiavellian thoughts about some of this stuff after having done this and talked about it for so long. You're either empathetic or you're a sociopath. Yeah. Right? So, you know, there's no right or wrong on that. Well, I just, you know, I mean mean you've been doing this for a long time i've been doing it for a very long time too i mean i've been teaching the basic branding of the 100 insurance questions answered thing that i talk about or more than a decade and i think mike crowley is the first

person that ever completed it. And he didn't even do it in 100 days took him a couple months. Yeah, you know, you know, he did it, like a couple extra months, like he didn't do one every day. And my point in saying that to you is like, sometimes, sometimes, and this may sound terrible, but like I just think to myself, if you're really not, like if Nick Ayers, a guy who has proven through both himself and multiple case studies, tens of case studies, and probably hundreds of other people that have done it that haven't been in your direct, you know, under your direct oversight have shown that spending a little extra time on the words and coming up with the offer and just that time that you're not going to tweet out, you know, there's that time that no one's watching, just doing that work. If that's the thing that you need to do to then have 10 X the success down the road, and you're still not willing to do it, I feel like then I kind of feel like you deserve your struggles. Does it make sense? Like I just, sometimes I get, I feel like

there's a lot of whining or opining. Well, opining is probably a better term for the various things that have happened in the insurance industry and the insure techs that are coming on and, you know, all that kind of stuff. Yet, so few people are willing to do the work. And then I see someone like you, or I see the success of Danny Kimball and what she's done at the O'Neill Group in the last few years is her career has really come on and she's shown that consistent branded social media content over and over and over again, you know, really drives growth in organization like it has in hers. And, you know, and, and we just have the same case studies. Now, I know there's more people out there who aren't as, you know, who just don't talk about it as much.

So I'm not going to say that these are the only ones. Sure. But versus the number of people who operate in our space, the fact that there are just so few new case studies each year boggles my mind. Well, is it really? I mean, think about it from this standpoint. You know, you spent some time in the fitness niche. Is it really any different in the fitness niche between the people who get up and they do, they put in the extra mile to do the, instead of taking selfies in the, in the mirror saying that they're at the gym, they're actually, you know, running the treadmill.

They're actually doing crunches. They're actually doing chin-ups and, and, and putting in really hard work. You see that on every, in every spectrum, right? Whether it's physical or whether it's mental or, and I'm not even, I tell people I am not the, you know, there are lots of people that even I looked and I think, man, I wish, you know, it's, it's a developed skill, right? It's like seeing, it's like having good biceps. You think you got decent biceps until you see someone, you see a crew of people with

much larger biceps. You're like thinking I need to put in more work, right? I need, I need to figure this out more. And that comes with time and reps, time and reps, time and reps. So let me, let me reposition my argument because my argument is not the production of high quality results. It's taking, it's, it's putting the shield down and blocking the first shot from the little thing. Like, I feel like it surprises me how few people each year actually do the work of taking the first step onto the path. They still stand on

the sidelines. That's the part. And that's what, yeah. And the first step, you know, most people are sad. You know, if you, if you go to a football game or a basketball game, there's, there's a lot more people in the grandstands than there are on the playing field. And that's just the way of life. And so, um, the first step is always arts. And that's why I've, I've tried to address it even with people I work with, Let's take the first two or three steps. And that's why with me, it's, you know, we're going to do a series of one-on-one calls, not in a group setting, which is going to be me and you. And we're doing offer.

Then we'll get to the sexy stuff later on. But we're dialing this in. Taking that first step is the hardest part. I have to now, with people that I work with, I have to take control of their mouse. And I have to hit submit for them because it's a paralyzing thing. People don't, people prefer, it's that old saying, people prefer known hells versus unknown heavens, right? They know what they have if they just stay put and they are satisfied that they're paralyzed with that. We make those decisions in everything that we do, whether it's the restaurants

we choose to go to eat at, our career choices, how we raise our kids. We prefer what we're used to, even if it's to our own detriment. And we don't want to take a step out because who knows what that is. We don't want to walk in the direction of the unknown or in the direction of a cloud. We'll always go in the direction of something that's clear, even if that means staying put where we're at. And so, yeah, to your point, it's, it's mind boggling that not enough people see, I wish I'm like, man, I wish you would see this. I wish you would see this. And I, you know, I know my mentors are thinking, man, Nick, I wish you would see this. And it's just, again, it comes with, it just comes with, with being involved with it and,

and being, you know, again, if I had to be dropped off in the middle of Mexico, I don't speak Spanish, but I'm gonna learn it really fast if I want to survive. Yeah. And that just comes with time and practice. Yeah, I guess my hope is for those listening, and I don't mean this to be quite the indictment that I probably made it sound earlier. But I guess my, again, skill level doesn't bother me. Natural inclination doesn't bother me uh natural inclination doesn't bother me what I'm I guess my hope and my hope for for my particular work because I've always maybe tried to be more of a connector than an educator because I'm just I'm not I'm not even in the

same ballpark as you from copywriting from from at from all that kind of stuff even from offer building but you're not giving yourself enough credit. But my point is that's not, I would never classify that as, as a level of expertise. What I've always wanted my work to be is how do I get the people who, who want to take the first step into the world that you know best to you? I don't need them to work with me. I want them to work with the person who's, and, and I just want the people listening to this know that if you haven't taken that first step, there are people who will connect you with individuals who will hold your hand to that place. Like there is no thing that you could possibly want to do in this space that there isn't someone who will help you wade into that pool. And I guess that's the message that I want to get out to everyone who's listening to this is like, there is a range of things that you are the guy to take that person's hand and wade them down into the pool. And then for other things, there may be other people. And I just, my hope has always been that more people take the first step. I don't,

I don't care about your level of proficiency, because like you said, that comes with time and practice and patience and effort and all that kind of stuff. And that will happen. What I want, what I would just love to see is more, more organizations and individuals within our industry starting to take that first step. And I think, I think part of that comes from a general awareness of the fact that there are a lot of,

a lot of really high quality professionals who know our space inside and out that can help them do that. And whatever it is, you know what I mean? If it's better utilizing your agency management system, there are people for that. If there's internal organizational process, there's people for that. You know what I mean? If there's high level branding, there's people for that. I mean, that there are what I just don't like to see is the complete paralysis and stagnation, where it's just like, I'm gonna hold tight because, you know, you talk to somebody like, like, well, anyone who's, who's been interested or has sold an agency in the very near future, and they'll tell you that you were probably at peak EBITDA. So you, you, you know, not that you, I'm not saying you should sell, but like allowing your valuation to slip today will only be multiplied as we go into the future. You know what I mean? So you have to be very aware of that. And stagnation is, you're not holding up the fort.

Yeah. Complacency is a real thing. I think, you know, it's just, it's just part of human nature, right? We're complacent. And, and I, you know, I think that there's, I think complacency can be a good thing, can be a bad thing. You know, if you're content, I think is another word for saying that if you're content with certain things, certain aspects of your life, certain aspects of your business professionally, I think, you know, again, I, I, I desire that. I personally desire to be in that place. I don't, I don't know that I'll ever see myself as a being someone who's not wanting to learn certain things, but, you know, I think that complacency is just a part of that human condition that you have to fight against. And so you have to jar it loose with certain things, but you know, I think that complacency is just a part of that human condition that you have to fight against. And so you have to jar it loose with certain things. And, and that's where having a good offer comes in place, right? A good offer is going to, or good, good, good pinpointed copy,

or however you want to call it, you know, direct messaging can, can jar that loose. But, and, but no, I think, I think it's a human condition that's that's we see everywhere yeah like i it's frustrating i i i totally hear your point it is frustrating though yeah because i there's just so much out there and i think a lot of people are taking it on and in general you know it goes back to your point earlier, right. About empathy, right. You, you're more empathetic to people that you have an affinity with and maybe empathetic is not my word, but you, you know, those, that frustration is an emotion that you feel, or that, that anger even is an

emotion that you feel. And you feel that because you're, you're connected to this, this system, this, this community, these people, you know, them personally, you know, them professionally and you, you desire for them to have more or want more. Whereas if it was, you know, CPAs, you might not feel the same way. So, you know, it goes back to one of your original points. Just kidding. Love all my accounting brothers and sisters. I lived in that world for a while. Um, dude, I appreciate you so much. This has been a great conversation. I want to be respectful of your time. And I just think we've hit on a lot of stuff. And obviously, you're always welcome to come on. You got an open invitation to the show. So

I want to close this out. I didn't just have you on here for the conversation. I do think what you're doing with Made You Look is an incredibly important facility within our industry. And anyone that's interested, I mean, I've recommended that your course to a ton of people. I've spent time in it myself. I think it's incredibly high quality, high value. And anyone who is interested in what you're doing, if they apply themselves, the results are there. So just let everyone listening home who may not be familiar, let them know where they can find out more

and maybe even the quick pitch. Yeah, no. So there's a few things that you can do if you want to learn more about what we do. We have a 21-day onboarding process that I'll take you through one-on-one in a group setting. We're going to craft your offer, perfect your offer. We're going to help you launch your first ad, and then you're going to have me by your side in that 21 days to analyze your results and to tweak, prune, refine, optimize, scale, whatever we need to do. So you're going to implement.

You're not going to join our program anymore if you don't implement. And that's what we're after. We're after people that are action takers that want the results and do that. You can find out more about what we do. There's two areas. Number one, I would encourage everybody to subscribe to our YouTube channel, something we're promoting a lot now. Go to Major League Video Marketing or Major League Marketing on YouTube, subscribe. I'm putting out a lot of free content. I'm releasing the Killing Geico series today. So you can watch that, tactical tips, things, things that people would pay for. I'm releasing the Killing Geico series today, so you can watch that, tactical tips, things that people would pay for. I'm giving it to you for free. So subscribe to our YouTube channel, share that content with another insurance agency owner or community.

And if you want to learn more about our program and what we have to offer, then go to our website, www.madeyoulookvideo.com, schedule an appointment, speak with our team. We'll see if it's a good fit for you. Again, we're only interested in those who say that I want results and I'm prepared to take the action in order to get those results. We intentionally are not the least expensive. We don't believe that that's going to be valuable to you. And so, but we do believe that if you're in the family, we're going to do everything we can. We're going to beg, borrow and steal and do whatever we can to help you get the results that you're looking for. So that's something you want to do. Don't forget to join our website. You're the man, dude. Appreciate the time. Be good.

Thanks, man. You too. សូវាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you. close twice as many deals by this time next week sound impossible it's not with the one call close system you'll stop chasing leads and start closing deals in one call. This is the exact method we use to close 1,200 clients in under three years during the pandemic. No fluff, no endless follow-ups, just results fast. Based in behavioral psychology and battle-tested, the One Call Close system eliminates excuses and gets the prospect saying yes more than you ever thought possible. If you're ready to stop losing opportunities and start winning, visit masteroftheclothes.com. That's masteroftheclothes.com.

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