Agent Link - December 2019

Agent Link - December 2019

AGENT LINK To empower those who change lives for the better

DEC 2019

they play in your organization. Use these actions to send a message that you care and to show that you appreciate them. At Agent Link, we have much thanks to give, starting with the unbelievable group of people who form our team. Together, we have seen tremendous growth in 2019, and we look forward to turning our Collective Vision 2020 into reality. What continues to bring us together is purpose: empowering those who change lives for the better. When we hear that we made a difference in your organization and created a positive impact by connecting you with the right producers, we are both joyful and thankful to be a part of that. In turn, you were able to make a positive impact in those producers’ lives, their business, and the lives of their clients. Hearing that the links we fostered made a big difference for others inspires us to keep getting better and innovating. So, in this holiday season, we want to take a moment to thank you for being a part of this journey with us.We’re so grateful for you. We wish you a wonderful time of festive joy with your loved ones. Happy holidays, -Stu and Senia Gramajo INSIDE 1. A Holiday Message From Stu and Senia 2. What Great Leaders Have in Common The Truth Behind ‘Personas’ 3. The 4 Pillars of Digital Presence 4. A Better Way to Think About Motivation

THE CORE VALUE OF THE HOLIDAYS Gratitude Is the Theme of the Season

little extra effort to keep the show on the road. Perhaps they’re juggling working and creating a memorable season for their family and kids. Maybe you find yourself in the same boat. Thanksgiving may be behind us, but more than ever, this is the time to remember that gratitude is still the essential core value of the holidays.This is the perfect time to express your appreciation to your staff. We should be giving props and sharing kind words year-round, but upping your efforts during the holidays will have a huge impact. For those staff who are still working through the holiday season, extra words of encouragement and small acts of gratitude will go a long way. Maybe it means treating them to breakfast one morning or giving them an early day right before the holidays to go spend time with their loved ones (or get those last gifts).These actions send a message that you understand what they are experiencing and that you recognize the part

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” –Zig Ziglar “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” –Oprah Winfrey Like the jolly fellow up North, the holiday season is absolutely action packed for some of our clients. It’s one of the busiest times of the year for most, and I’m not just referring to open enrollment and those working in the senior market. For others, it can be a bit slower and a time to prepare for the coming year. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, odds are that some of your team is out during the holidays.Those who are still in office are probably stretched a bit thin as they put in a

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Poor delegation is the Achilles’ heel of most leaders, who often confuse being “involved” with being “essential.”To determine if you’re holding on to work you should delegate out, the Harvard Business Review (HBR) recommends asking this simple question: “If you had to take an unexpected week off work, would your initiatives and priorities advance in your absence?” If your answer is no or you aren’t sure, then you’re probably too involved. No one person should be the cog that keeps everything in motion, no matter their position in the company. Luckily, HBR has created an audit using the following six T’s to identify which tasks can be delegated. Tiny: Small tasks that stack up can undermine the flow of your work. Registering for a conference, putting it on the calendar, and booking the flight are all small tasks someone else can handle. Tedious: These tasks are straightforward but not the best use of your time. Someone else can input lists into spreadsheets or update key performance indicators for a presentation. Time-Consuming: These important, complex tasks don’t require you to do the first 80% of the work. Identify what they are, pass them to someone else, and step in for the final 20% to give approval. Teachable: Is there a task only you know how to do? If so, teach someone else to do it, and step in for the last quality check when it’s done. Terrible At: It’s okay to be bad at some things. Great leaders know when to pass tasks off to someone who is more skilled than they are.The task will get done faster and at a much higher quality. Time-Sensitive: These tasks need to get done right now but are competing with tasks of a higher priority. Just because it has to get done immediately doesn’t mean you have to be the one to do it. Sure, some tasks only you can accomplish, but these are extremely rare. As the Virgin Group founder Richard Branson warns, needlessly resisting delegation is the path to disaster. “You need to learn to delegate so that you can focus on the big picture,” Branson says. “It’s vital to the success of your business that you learn to hand off those things that you aren’t able to do well.” The Secret to Being a Great Leader Delegate to Elevate

As an experienced marketing professional, you’ve come across the terms buyer personas, profiles, and avatars. I like tackling this topic head-on because there is some confusion out there. Now, successful marketing efforts start with identifying key publics to target. Building personas and aligning your strategy based on key insights can give you a great, even unfair, advantage over competitors. But first, we must understand that a persona is not just another term for a typical customer profile . To appreciate the difference — and more importantly, how the difference helps your efforts — I’d like to briefly revisit the evolution of advertising. I’m sure you’ll agree that today’s marketplace is no longer responsive to the strategies of the past. My partner, for example, remembers a time Get in Front of — and Connect W When you consider trying a new restaurant, how do you determine if it’s any good? Most likely, you look it up and read the Yelp reviews to find out if it’s worth your time or if you should avoid the duck ragu. In terms of finding organizations, it’s no different for independent agents and advisors.They’re looking at you online, and in turn, their potential customers are doing the same thing.With 91% of adults using search engines to find information on the web, you can’t afford to not be online. Here are the four pillars that a healthy digital presence is made of. 1. Your Website The information on your website needs to be relevant and up to date. If your phone number or other contact information has changed, make sure it’s been updated. In addition, a website should be easy to navigate and have only the pertinent information that your ideal audience is looking for.This will also help you rank better in their search results. 2. LinkedIn/Facebook/Social Media On LinkedIn, you can connect with many industry folks, as well as other professionals who can help you grow your business. There are other options for social media presence, of course, but whichever you choose, it’s paramount to have some type of social media account. The 4 Pillars of Digit

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WHAT IS THIS ‘PERSONA’ WE KEEP TALKING ABOUT? And How Does It Boost Distribution and Recruiting?

Put simply, just because you know that your market consists of annuity producers writing north of $3 million in annuity premium per year, you don’t necessarily know the best way to attract them any better than competitors. What does that profile tell you about what’s making that type of producer receptive to new opportunities. Is that type of producer fully satisfied with their current upline or contracts? How do they expect a new upline to be different from the one or two they’re already with? Where and how will a $3-million producer do their due diligence? How do they compare products? A producer persona provides what the profile does not — the story of how your ideal customer arrives at the decision you are trying to influence. Here’s what one recent client said after Agent Link built his advisor personas. “When I was presented with the extremely compelling producer and advisor personas from the folks at Agent Link, it gave me tremendous optimism that we would be able to focus on the exact type of people who we want to work with at our company. Instead of casting with a wide net, we are now able to focus on the candidates who are the correct fit for our company. Thanks Agent Link for a wonderful education!”

when IMOs were sending postcards promoting a newly designed product, term with ROP, and producers were faxing in their contracts by the droves, ready to write business. Boy, that was a different era in producer recruiting. Do you remember when email marketing started taking off? How do current response rates compare? This is not to say emails are no longer effective, but it does say that strategies have changed considerably. Prior to the internet, companies had two significant choices to attract attention: advertising or third-party ink from relevant media. Communication traveled in one direction, from the advertiser to potential buyers. And because of the nature of the channels (TV, publications, radio, etc.), marketing departments defined their ideal customers in very broad demographic terms. Now, here is a key term worth defining! Demographics are quantifiable statistics on a population, such as age, gender, education, etc. In producer recruiting, these could be licenses held, affiliations, age, and products sold. Customer profiles are a valuable and vital way to know and understand customers. However, profiles only take you as far as those broad demographic strokes define a customer. And while a profile could neatly define your who , it lacks the intelligence needed in today’s market to also understand the how and the why . When you Google your company, do you see your Google listing? If not, it’s time to get yourself listed. With online presence being so important, this is another way agents and advisors will determine if you're a trustworthy and legitimate company. 4. Online Reviews If you don’t have many online reviews, start by asking clients for them.Then, ensure you respond to even the negative ones. Businesses risk losing 22% of business when potential customers find one negative review on the first page of results. Knowing what people are saying and responding to is key. As the leader of your company, you may have all four of these pillars covered. But are your agents or producers listed, and are they using these platforms to cultivate their digital presence? If not, encourage them to do so. Not only will it improve their satisfaction and success at your organization, but you’ll also reap the benefits when they write more business. l Presence th — Your Target Audience 3. Your Google Listing

-Stu Gramajo

HAVE A LAUGH!

-Senia Gramajo

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Susan Fowler’s ‘Master Your Motivation’

A Science-Based Approach to Achieving More

your motivation, create choice, connection, and competence.”When you measure motivation across these three factors, which are the result of rigorous academic research rather than folksy conventional wisdom, you unlock the power of motivation. It’s not hard to see how Fowler’s framework is much more actionable than traditional motivational techniques. Creating intrinsic motivation, especially for others, is a mug’s game, but defining choice, connection, and competence is much less ambiguous. If you have team members who you feel lack motivation, ask yourself if their jobs have these three essential traits. Do they have agency (choice) in their work? Do they generate meaning (connection) from what they do? Do they get a sense of accomplishment (competence) from doing something well? If you can’t answer all three of these in the affirmative, you can create a plan for increasing motivation that doesn’t involve empty metrics or meaningless rewards. If you or your team could use a proverbial kick in the pants, the solution might be to ignore those proverbs entirely. “Master Your Motivation” takes a refreshing look at what makes us strive for more. It’s a great addition to any leadership library.

“You have the power to change your behaviors,” says Susan Fowler, “but to be successful in changing, you need an evidenced-based framework for motivation and techniques for applying it.” In her new book, “Master Your Motivation: Three Scientific Truths for Achieving Your Goals,” Fowler synthesizes her decades of research into a guide that provides such a framework. In the process, she overturns countless widely held myths about what motivates us. Fowler believes the traditional carrot-and-stick approach to motivation (a combination of reward and punishment to induce a desired behavior) results from our perception of motivation as being either intrinsic or extrinsic. “Simplifying motivations into two types presents a conundrum when you aren’t intrinsically motivated,” she writes. “Your only fallback position is extrinsic motivation.” In other words, just by thinking about motivation as intrinsic versus extrinsic, you’ve already set yourself up to fail. To really motivate yourself and others, she argues, you need to think about motivation in different terms. Thankfully for the reader, Fowler defines an alternative framework for motivation. In what amounts to the book’s thesis, she states, “To master

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Key Actionable Insights:

What Your Producers Are Frustrated With, and How You Can Help Them

91% of U.S. adults use search engines to find information on the web. 84% of U.S. adults trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. 87% of adults aged 50–64 are online. 66% of adults aged 65-plus are online. 50% of the U.S. adult population Googles someone before doing business with them.

What was surprising was the correlation we found in our research. We wanted to know: Are these customer behaviors — no-shows and procrastination — inevitable? Are agents and advisors condemned to experience them as a regular occurrence of the job, or are there proactive steps they can take to avoid them? What we discovered is the key factor underlying these frustrations: a strong correlation between the sales process and an agent’s digital presence. Equipped with this insight, here is the key information and tools that we can use to empower agents and advisors to get up to date on their digital presence and take ownership over their role. Even before they meet us, consumers are looking us up. Put yourself in the shoes of a prospect: When you’re thinking about buying a new product or meeting someone for professional services, what’s the first step you take? Chances are, you’re turning to the World Wide Web. You’re in good company. According to Forbes, 91% of adults who are online use search engines to find information on the web, and 84% trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. What’s more, 93% of searchers never go past the first page , instead using only the first 10 search results to form their impression. So what happens when a new prospect Googles a company or agent prior to a scheduled meeting and finds negative or no reviews? Businesses risk losing 22% of business when potential customers find even one negative result on the first page of their search results, according to the article. Similarly, no results also have a negative impact. If a business cannot be found, it raises concerns and a lack of trust. Nearly half of U.S. adults Googled someone before doing business with them, and 45% said they found something in an online search that made them decide not to do business with the person.

Looking at these numbers, you’d be left wondering why anyone wouldn’t cultivate their online presence. And yet, many independent agents and advisors are woefully behind, still operating in the 20th century when it comes to their Google listings, websites, and online reviews. Not coincidentally, these numbers also get at the core of two of the most significant frustrations agents and advisors face: appointment no-shows and prospect procrastination. In a 2018 survey undertaken by Agent Link with 1,500 agents and advisors across the nation, these two frustrations rose to the top.This isn’t a huge surprise: From the wasted preparation time to the lost revenue, a “no-show” can throw off your game considerably.Think about how frustrated you feel when someone cancels on you last minute or doesn’t show up at all.

It’s not only millennials, but also boomers and seniors! While millennials are more dependent on digital information than older generations, the gap is closing. A recent study published by GlobalWebIndex in their “Social” report of 2018 shows that technology adoption and social media are rapidly growing among 55–64-year-olds, a key age demographic for many producers and advisors. Validating those findings, Pew Research Center found that 87% of adults aged 50–64 and 66% of adults 65-plus are online, with percentages growing each year. Google has become a verb in our language, and though there are many search engines available, Google still leads. According to Spiegel Research Center, 63.6% of consumers look up Google reviews specifically, and as many as 36% of consumers agree that Google reviews have become the most important factor when choosing a business. So how can we empower agents and advisors to harness all this online traffic? Here are four steps they can follow. S tep 1: C reate an O nline P resence . Advisors and agents need to make sure they exist online.They should create a LinkedIn profile to start, and they can create a Google account for free. Google now provides a platform and resource called “Google My Business.” From this account, you can make your business visible online and inspire more confidence and trust with prospective clients. (The link to get started is Google.com/business.) Next, agents and advisors should get to work on their website. A website should have, at minimum, basic information about their expertise and solutions they provide to clients. A phone number and other contact information should be easily found, along with a key headline that shows prospects what problems they solve. A website should be mobile-friendly, as most searches today are done with mobile devices. Next, they must create or update a Better Business Bureau profile and a Google profile. If they have a Facebook business page, it needs to be updated as well. Messaging and other information should be consistent across the website, Google listing, and social media profiles. S tep 2: A sk C lients for F eedback . The same Forbes article mentioned earlier explains that 68% of customers surveyed were willing to provide feedback for the company — people want to share their insight. So how do you get customers to write the glowing reviews that close deals? Ideally, agents and advisors should have a process they repeat after every sale, and it should go something like this: Create an email or letter and ask clients for feedback. Ask them on a scale of 1–10 how they rate their experience, what you’re doing right, and what you can do better. If they rate their experience as a 9 or a 10, ask them for a review and provide them with a link to your Google listing, BBB profile, and website (if it has testimonials capabilities). Agents might also offer an incentive to write reviews, such as a gift card or an entry to win a contest for an even bigger prize.

S tep 3: A sk the R ight Q uestions . Think of the review process as a conversation rather than a favor. Open-ended questions are great. Before even requesting a review, agents can ask clients questions like, “How was your recent experience with us?” or, “How are you liking your product?”That way, they can gauge satisfaction before clients leave any feedback. S tep 4: R espond , R espond , R espond . The last thing you want to see is a scathing one-star review. But no matter how hard anyone works, they’re bound to happen. When an agent receives one, they should take the time to respond thoughtfully — without being defensive — and try to come up with a possible solution to the complaint. Oh, and be sure to respond to positive reviews as well. When agents show that they engage with all of their customers, prospective ones will be more likely to give them a shot. While these are steps agents and advisors need to take on their own to mitigate two of their most common frustrations, you can empower those in your channel to take these steps too. Encourage them to ask for reviews and get their online presence up to date. Doing so will not only help reduce two of their biggest frustrations, which will increase their overall satisfaction within your organization, but it will also further empower them to change lives for the better. Not to mention, it helps you build and grow your agency that exists for that very reason. Sources Forbes’ article on online reputation — Forbes.com/sites/ ryanerskine/2017/09/19/20-onlinereputation-statistics-that-every- businessowner-needs-to-know/#3a5af6e6cc5c GlobalWebindex’s flagship report on the latest trends of social media — GlobalWebIndex.com/hubfs/downloads/social-H2-2018-report. pdfSocial-H2- 2018-report.pdf Pew Research Report — PewInternet.org/fact-sheet

-Stu Gramajo