Unlocking Success in Insurance Sales Through Modern Marketing with Andy Neary

Andy Neary: [: 00:00:00

to the audio you can't see behind me

but there are three portraits behind me

and they have three words on 'em.

Consistency, persistency,

and patience

those are my super power, Richard.

Consistency

which is the ability to show up every week

and do the same thing every week

week after week.

Persistency is to keep doing it

after everybody quits.

And then patience is knowing that

this is a very long game

and you have to enjoy

the process if you're

gonna have success

and I was not given any special skill

I was not given any special talent

and by the way

I did not have this as a kid

this was a learned skill over time

but I really started developing it

late in college when I realized

I had a chance to maybe

play pro baseball

this consistency of putting

in the work off the field

when no one is watching is

what's gonna help me get to the next level

and I'd tell you

if there's one thing right now

that we leverage as our superpower

here at Complete Game Consulting

it's that consistency

Richard Matthews: yeah

Andy Neary: Our ability to show up

every week create content

put out what we need to do

run the [: 00:01:00

and that's the advice

I'd give any entrepreneur

you wanna have success in business

be consistent

​

Richard Matthews: [: 00:02:00

Andy Neary: I am Richard. Excited to be here.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Glad to have you. So, I know you were just talking before we got on here where we're at and I know my audience always wanted to know 'cause we're traveling. We are currently in Southern California, in Temescal Valley visiting friends and family out here. where are you coming in from?

Andy Neary: I am here in Dull and Gray South Central Wisconsin. We just moved back from Colorado after nine years. And I won't lie, Richard, I'm struggling with the winter here. It's a little too gray for me. I'm used to that Colorado Sun.

Richard Matthews: I'm in Southern California and we've got rain for the next four days, which is not very typical of SoCal. And I got a little TikTok video that showed up on my wife's feed this morning that was like, check in with your Southern California friends. We're not okay. Like, it's raining and it's like, you know, I think the temperature is 54, right?

That's cold, right? Like,

ew up in Wisconsin, I always [: 00:03:00

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Andy Neary: Then we moved out to Colorado and I realized like, no, I get it 'cause in Colorado, if it went more than three days without sun, people lost their minds.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. So like, as a Southern California kid, born and raised like it gets to 64 degrees and I'm like, I'm frozen because like my body freezes at 65.

Andy Neary: You don't wanna come visit me right now.

Richard Matthews: I don't wanna come Wisconsin, but we got like family in Illinois and in Iowa and we're gonna go visit and be cold. I'm like, oh man. You realize the south exists, right? Like, you guys can move and that's my joke. So before we get too far into this, I want to dive into your bio real quick and then we'll start getting into your story.

tivate the off-field habits, [: 00:04:00

So, with that brief introduction, what I wanna start off with is what are you known for, right? What's your business like? Who do you serve? What do you do for them?

Andy Neary: Great question. When people ask me, what do you do better than anybody else, Andy, I'd say our team specializes in helping producers build credibility with their prospects before they ever meet 'em. And that's done because the way we prospect Richard, has changed. If you're in sales, back in the day, it was all cold calls, cold email, door to door.

Richard Matthews: Absolutely.

Andy Neary: Well, nowadays there's so many different channels you can use to get attention talking about online, social media, things like that podcast, right? We teach people how to use the modern forms of marketing to get attention from their prospects and get their prospects to build credibility with their prospects before they ever meet 'em.

like, and trust before they [: 00:05:00

Right? Not after they become a lead, which is last generation type marketing stuff. And the businesses that are actually taking advantage of that are seeing a lot of success. And so like in our business, we work with a lot of different industries. So, what's interesting to me, and you might know where this is at since you work a lot with insurance professionals, is you have like categories of businesses that follow the marketing bell curve of innovation.

And so like your coaches and consultants and online agencies will be like at the front end of the technology. And then you'll have like your service professionals who get into like lawyers and doctors and insurance agents. And then you'll have like the back end of the bell curve, which is like construction then and electricians and plumbing and my light and like pest control companies that are like at the back end of the technology bell curve.

And so like the marketing thing now is like if you start getting into this content creation and building an audience and doing that kind of stuff now, and you're in like the insurance industry space. You're in the legal space, you're probably one of the few in your industry. That are playing with these tools and doing that.

So it just gives you a humongous step up over the competition. And you see that?

mean you talk about the bell [: 00:06:00

the way we market, right? And: 2020

Richard Matthews: Oh yeah.

Andy Neary: And I think a lot of people just haven't caught up to what works. And here's what's happening in our industry is those folks that are 55, 60 years old, they're at a place in their business where they don't have to grow as much as they have to maintain what they already have.

at's the gap we're trying to [: 00:07:00

Richard Matthews: Yeah. So what's really fascinating there, and again, you probably understand this too, is your younger buyers, right? So you're talking about your young producers, right? The ones who are actually making business happen, but the people that are buying from them you know, your millennial generation, your Gen Z, which is starting to come into their money-buying years, right?

Like right now just the first part of that generation is getting into their early 20s and whatnot. So like those two generations have grown up buying differently than Gen X or the baby boomer generation or the greatest generation. They all their buying habits are different and they do something that I have lovingly starting to refer to as a heartbeat check on businesses.

And so the what the heartbeat check is when they go to like hire someone, whether it's a real estate agent or an insurance professional, or a pest control, it doesn't matter what it is. What they're gonna do is they're gonna go to their favorite social media channel. And you may not know what that is, right?

two years ago, or you know, [: 00:08:00

And they will pick the business that has a consistent heartbeat, even if it's just a monthly heartbeat. Like the heartbeat is there. You exist, right? And so that's what I've started referring to it as a heartbeat check 'cause the younger generations absolutely perform heartbeat checks. Whether or not they're, that's what they would call it.

But that's what they do with businesses is they go and look. Are they?

Andy Neary: I love, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you out there. I love the way you said that. I haven't, I've never referred to it as a heartbeat check, but what we tell people is, are you searchable? Because nowadays what do people do? They Google you, right? And if somebody Google's you, are you searchable? Am I gonna see a page one full of your content?

If I don't, you lose credibility with me. And so I love that concept of the heartbeat 'cause that's really what it's almost like, do you have an online heartbeat?

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Andy Neary: It is so important these days.

t? As a millennial buyer, if [: 00:09:00

Like you're hiring the guy who's posting content regularly, which is, you know, for better or worse, that's just the way the market is moving. So you have to move that direction with your business if you want to win.

Andy Neary: Yeah, I agree. I was just listening to GaryVee clip a couple weeks ago, and he was talking about how he had coached a gentleman, I think the guy actually owns a business here in Wisconsin. Asphalt Paving. Asphalt Paving. And he told him that he needed to be on TikTok. And so the guy started creating TikTok videos for Asphalt Paving, and he doubled his business in one year.

Richard Matthews: That's amazing, right? And that's just one platform. Just one, right? There's a lot of platforms where there's a lot.

Asphalt. No, it works today [: 00:10:00

Richard Matthews: You have to have that heartbeat. So that's I think that's a great place to start, just as you know, understanding what it is that you guys do. So you help insurance professionals understand how to do and how to build that. So what I want to get into next is your origin story, right? So every good comic, quick book hero has an origin story.

It's the thing that made you into the hero you are today, and we wanna hear that story. Were you born a hero or were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you wanna help insurance agents with their online marketing? Where'd you start a job and eventually become an entrepreneur? Basically, where did you come from?

Andy Neary: I love that question because I'm actually gonna do a Ted talk about this, Richard. I think a lot of entrepreneurs think when they grow up that the people we all follow today, they all have this rag a riches story, or somehow they overcame some unbelievable odds to get to where they are. I had the most average childhood anybody could ever have.

dhood was average. I did not [: 00:11:00

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Andy Neary: But just because you had an average upbringing doesn't mean you can't go on to have big time success. And early on, you know where I came from. I struggled to get attention as a kid because I was an overweight kid, and so I was that kid who tried to just fit in anywhere I went because whenever I got attention, it was usually negative. You know, I talk about this in some of my keynotes. My biggest enemy in grade school was not the bully on the playground, it was the annual presidential fitness test because when you're an overweight kid, you struggle with pull ups, push ups, sit and reach and climb the ropes, right?

And so as a kid, I just wanted to fit in and it was so easy to look fast because I never wanted attention, but there was always one place I was okay getting attention. And that was on the baseball field. I grew up in a baseball family. My dad played college baseball. He was the longtime high school baseball coach where I went to high school.

ssful baseball career, which [: 00:12:00

And so the, if you think about it from a superhero concept, this is where I went back to being the chunky kid again. I feel like it's when Peter Parker goes back to being Peter Parker from Spider-Man. Because when I got to pro baseball, all those fears I had of not belonging came back.

e mound could easily be your [: 00:13:00

You're easily cuttable. And so living in that fear, I think is what defined my pro baseball career. And it's why I lasted only two years in pro baseball is because I did not reach my full potential, because I let those fears dominate who I was.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, that's really fascinating. So how did you go from a pro baseball career to what you do now?

Andy Neary: Like everybody else. I found my way into this industry. I had a family friend who suggested I should try this thing called insurance, and I went to work for him. But shortly after he hired me, he had a heart attack and he had to retire. And at the same time, my sales manager at the same organization left.

rganization called Federated [: 00:14:00

And that was twenty-two years ago, Richard. And here I am. I no longer sell insurance. I coach insurance producers, but it's been a twenty-two year journey. But I'll be honest, the first 10 years of my insurance career were just like my pro baseball career I just wanted to fit in. I had the fear of comparison, failure and judgment still kind of ruling my life, and I didn't perform near to what I was capable of in this industry because of all those fears.

So, you know, when you tell the story of the hero, the journey the superhero, most of my early life and childhood were spent as I was not in my superhero cape, let's just say that.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. I have a similar story growing up. I grew up in, you know, the quintessential perfect American family. I had a mom and a dad, and they both were amazing and I still have great relationships with both of them. And like they were, you know, middle income, upper middle income as they grew into their careers you know, growing up.

struggle and, you know, for [: 00:15:00

And my only saving grace was I could do the pull-ups. Right, because I weighed nothing. I was, like 60 pounds to everyone else's 120 pounds. So I could do pull-ups, you know, all day long. And so that was the only thing that kept me from getting teased on campuses, you know, well, I got teased all the way up until we did the test and they were like, oh, you can actually do pull-ups. Maybe we shouldn't tease you as much. So,

Andy Neary: It elevated your status on the playground.

storytelling now, but I was [: 00:16:00

I didn't return, like, he passed all the papers out to everyone else but me. And he was like, I need to see you after class. And I freaked the F out because I was like, oh God I like, I've ruined it and I'm going to fail out of middle school. But he called me up after class and he was like, I didn't give you your paper back because I didn't want you to cry when I gave it to you. He is like, 'cause I graded you at a post high school level for your writing.

Andy Neary: Oh, what grade was this in?

Richard Matthews: Sixth grade he was like, your writing skills are significantly better where they should be at your age. And he is like, so it would be unfair of me to grade you at a sixth grade level because you would get nothing from it. And he was like, so I'm gonna grade your writing at a higher level and I'm gonna tear it apart for you because you could take it.

And I was like I still had a freak out moment. And then I, he had, he gave me a permission slip to do some coaching with him after class to like coach me on my writing 'cause he is like, I don't usually see a lot of kids with writing talents. So,

is a lot of storytelling. In [: 00:17:00

But I, as a kid, I loved writing stories.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, yeah.

Andy Neary: I haven't really thought about that until you said that. Now, I didn't go on and do it a whole lot after high school, but I loved writing stories and I guarantee that's had an impact on what we do today for sure.

Richard Matthews: yeah, Yeah. And I know, like for me, I had two teachers. I had my sixth grade teacher who did that with me and my 10th grade teacher at the same time. It was like when I turned in my first couple of writing pieces in 10th grade. And both of those teachers were skilled writers themselves.

And so when they saw my work come through, they were like, this guy could do some additional coaching for it. And so, and that's, it has turned into, you know, that's what my business is now. And I've actually I have gone back to my high school class and taught a class with my high school teacher, my 10th grade teacher, and like, Hey, the stuff that he's teaching you has actually led to, you know, we run a, you know, a million dollar business, right? He is like, so,

Andy Neary: That's awesome.

you know, part of my origin [: 00:18:00

Andy Neary: And what they, as they say in sports game, recognizes games. So your teachers obviously saw something in you, which was cool.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, yeah. And so that's where, you know, you went into to baseball, into marketing and whatnot. I went into writing a storytelling, but, you know, I was the nerdy kid who didn't make a lot of friends and could do some pullups, but that was it. So, what I want to dive into next is your superpowers, right?

So every hero has their superpowers, whether that's their fancy flying suit made by their genius intellect, or the ability to call down thunder from the sky or super strength. In the real world, heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a skill or a set of skills that you were born with or you developed over the course of your career.

And the superpower is what really what sets you apart. It allows you to help you people slay their villains, come on top of their journeys. The way I like to frame it for my guests is if you look at all the skills that you've developed over the course of building your business, you probably have a common thread that ties those skills together, and that's where you would find your superpower.

So what do you think your superpower is in your current business?

n't see behind me. But there [: 00:19:00

And I was not given any special skill. I was not given any special talent. And by the way, I did not have this as a kid. This was a learned skill over time, but I really started developing it late in college when I realized I had a chance to maybe play pro baseball. This consistency of putting in the work off the field when no one is watching is what's gonna help me get to the next level. And I'd tell you if that, if there's one thing right now that we leverage as our superpower here at Complete Game Consulting, it's that consistency.

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

o show up every week, create [: 00:20:00

Richard Matthews: Yeah, I don't know if you see it on the video. I got chills. And the reason is because it's politely simple, right? Because it sounds like it should be easy, but it's the hardest thing in the world. And the story that pops into my head for that is my son was in gymnastics growing up 'cause grandma Isaiah was a professional gymnast. She was very good and.

Andy Neary: Oh wow.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. And to the point that like she's just turned 60 the other day and I'm pretty sure she can still walk on her hands, like, and she'll probably listen to this episode and call me out for telling people that she's 60 years old. So I apologize in advance, mom. But congratulations and so she got our kids into gymnastics real early and I remember he was probably seven at the time, and one of his best friends in his gymnastics class had all the talent in the world, right?

was really good at it and he [: 00:21:00

And when he put in all the effort and practice at home and tried all this stuff and he just wasn't as good as his friend that just had all the talent. And I was like, and one of the things I regularly told him and I was like, listen consistency beats talent every day, right? Hard work beats talent every day.

And I was like, because you can build yourself to the point where you can have the same level of skill as he does if he doesn't put in the work, right? I was like, when you put talent and hard work together, that's when you get Olympians. But I was like, but you can compete with someone who just has talent and doesn't have the work ethic and not just compete.

ther things. He's actually a [: 00:22:00

Andy Neary: That's a hobby. That's like a categorized hobby.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, he's very good. So,

Andy Neary: Now I gotta ask. Now I'm intrigued. When you say fire spinners, I'm thinking of being at like a Hawaiian luau and they're spinning the fire. Is that what we're talking about?

Richard Matthews: Like legitimately, he takes balls of fire, lights them, like balls of like flaming things and lights 'em on fire and spins them around his body and dances to music with them.

Andy Neary: Wow.

Richard Matthews: And he started that at 9 years old. And he did several professional performances this last summer. He performed for two block parties and he performed for a wedding. Like he's really good. So he took a lot of that consistency and the work he puts in the work every day. And he's not a talented dancer. He's not a talented mover. He doesn't have, like, he doesn't know how to get into that flow state and you, but you can tell like he has learned the skill of being consistent and putting in the effort.

cause he wants to be good at [: 00:23:00

Andy Neary: I'll tell you what, man. If I'm building a team right now, we're in full scale mode, and you give me somebody who is not all that talented right now, but has the drive and the discipline to show up every day. I'll take that person over anybody with the skill. And the talent, but maybe a little complacent because they're resting on their laurels, they're resting on their talent, and we see that in the insurance industry all the time.

Everybody wants to go out and hire the best. Give me somebody who's willing to put in the work off the field, even though they may not be the most talented. And that team will kick everybody's butt any day of the week. And I have a special place in my heart for that because you can't see me fully on camera here.

otypical size for a pitcher. [: 00:24:00

Richard Matthews: Yeah. Yeah, I'm the same way. I was like, even when we hire for our staff I tell people, like I will take someone who has no skills, but is willing to show up and communicate well over someone who has the skills every day of the week. And so like our hiring process is designed around that, and that's how we run it internally.

And then like for our clients, one of the you know, I told you before, and you know, my audience knows this. We run a podcast agency. And so all of our clients are they're running podcasts to help grow their business. And we turn those into all their assets and everything.

nd stuff like that, they say [: 00:25:00

And what they're talking about there is compound interest, right? So like, money likes to move cashflow is very, it likes to move quickly, but if you wanna build wealth, it's consistency over time. And that happens, like it doesn't just work in the financial world, it works anywhere. It works in skill development, it works in social media and content development.

All of that consistency over time gets you from like, it's slow and it's slow and slow until it's fast, until it hockey sticks. And you know, we've seen that in our business, right? Where we were consistently put in the effort on our, podcast and our stuff for the first three or four years of our business.

And then last year,: 2023

Andy Neary: Wow good for you.

Richard Matthews: Right. It's slow until it's fast, but you have to put in the effort and those kind of things, and that's, you know, it, that consistency and persistency in patience, man. If you could embody that into everyone that's,

. It makes me laugh how many [: 00:26:00

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Andy Neary: I'm like, okay, so lemme get this straight. You tried recording a video twice and you have made the determination that you're not good. When you were a kid, there was a time you couldn't learn, you couldn't ride a bike, and then you could, there was a time when you didn't know how to drive a car and then you did. And now today you could probably drive your car, look on your, even though you should look at your cell phone or eat your lunch.

You could probably do both at the same time. That's video content. You gotta it's about putting in the reps and you gotta do that consistently because if you put in the reps consistently, you're gonna get good.

Richard Matthews: You are gonna get good. I tell one of the things that my kids and I, teach all the time is we talk about the, I call it the great suckitude, right? Whatever skill you have, to go through the great suckitude. And so we watch a lot of movies and TV shows and everything, and I always, you know, 'cause I'm a storyteller, I'm always picking apart the hero's journey in the show.

watching a, it was an anime [: 00:27:00

And they all were, replied back because I got four of 'em. They're all like, he's going through the great suckitude. And I'm like, that's right. The great suckitude. And so we celebrate that in our family. We celebrate the suckitude because that's how you get good at anything, right? Is you have to go through putting in the reps and being bad at it because nobody just starts off being good at anything. Right?

Like you didn't start off knowing how to talk, knowing how to walk, knowing how to put food in your mouth. But yet you do all those things now without even thinking about it. And so you have to go through that phase of the suckitude. Anyways. I appreciate that.

Andy Neary: And it, but that's the moment of truth though, what you call a suckitude, that's when, that's what separates. The men from the boys, the women from the girls. When it sucks, are you willing to keep showing up?

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

f people fall off. The Great [: 00:28:00

Richard Matthews: I can give you the stats on that.

Andy Neary: Ten?

Richard Matthews: Cause I run a podcasting company. I know those stats at the top of my head. So, if you have done more than 10 episodes you're in the top 3% of podcasters. If you've done more than, so 3%, if you've done more than 50 episodes, you're in the top 1%. And if you've passed a hundred episodes, you're in the top one 10th of 1% of podcasters.

And those are numbered in the millions, by the way. So, getting past the 10th episode is a huge milestone that puts you in the top 3%. Like you're a three percent, right? And 'cause most people aren't willing to do the suck, dude. They're not willing to be bad at it until you can get good at it.

o many people are willing to [: 00:29:00

Richard Matthews: Absolutely.

Andy Neary: If you can just show up consistently, you will separate yourself from everybody else. I see it. I have friends, I've been part of Masterminds for entrepreneurs. I watch these people over the years, and some of these people are onto their fifth different idea in three years because they're chasing a quick dollar versus saying, no, even if this business doesn't grow right now, I know what I'm here to do and I'm gonna stay the course.

And it's because nobody wants to apply that patience to keep showing up every day and knowing the winds not coming tomorrow. It might not come from next year but you just have to keep showing up every day. So many people can't do that.

is consistency, persistency, [: 00:30:00

And when I realized, I was like, Nope, I just need to put in the reps and get really good at one thing. Right? And that's where we started building the Push Button Podcast agency and really getting into the storytelling stuff several years ago. And it was like, we're gonna do this every day and we're gonna refine this process and we're just gonna get better and better at this one thing.

To the point now that like when I get on sales calls with people, like it takes me two seconds to tell someone what our offer is, and they're like, I want to give you my money. And I want to refer business to you, right? Like, 'cause we've just, we've put in the reps, we've gotten good at but we didn't start there, right?

Like we didn't start being good at it. And you don't get good at something until you have the thing that you're going to put in the reps in over and over and over and over again. And that willingness to put in the consistency and the persistency over the long term, that's the patience. And then, you know, that's how you get to the point where you can eight and a half x your business in a year. Right? That doesn't happen to on accident.

Andy Neary: [: 00:31:00

Right. And when I heard Alex say it, it just really hit home for me, which is, there's a big difference between an a finite game and an infinite game. Finite game has rules. It has players, it has a beginning and an end, and a score, and the score tells you who won or lost. An infinite game doesn't have that. The only rule of the infinite game is to keep the game going. And I think that's where a lot of entrepreneurs screw up is they get into the business with a finish line already in mind. Instead, if they would imply a infinite mindset of, my only job is to keep the game going, enjoy the process while I keep the game going, so many more entrepreneurs would successful.

t understand it, and I don't [: 00:32:00

If you just keep going, you will win at some point. Like, that's not the way other games are played, but that is the way business is played. And Alex actually, if you are listening to this and you haven't picked up this book, it's worth every cent of the $9 he charges you for this book. It's only the last chapter in the book where he talks about that dice metaphor about playing that dice game 'cause that's the metaphor he uses where he talks about, it's like, Hey, you know, you don't know how many sides your dice is. Right?

And, you know, someone else might have another one. And they get there faster by rolling, you know, they've only got 20 sided dice and it turns green on every one of 'em. And yours might be a hundred sided dice, but if you keep rolling it, eventually you will turn all the sides green. Right? And that's like, that's just the way this game works. And yeah I'm a huge fan.

neur too, right? It's become [: 00:33:00

Entrepreneurism wasn't as big back then, but I'm a story of somebody, Richard. I didn't grow up with the entrepreneur mindset. Both of my parents were teachers. I was raised in a family that preached safety, you know, get a job, put food on the table, have a retirement plan. And it took me 41 years to finally go out on my own and try this thing called entrepreneurship.

So anybody who's listening that maybe is asking themselves if they have what it takes took me forty-one years to figure it out. It's never too late.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, it's never too late. I was a little bit the opposite. My parents were also employees. And so we didn't have a lot of the business stuff going on, but for reasons unknown to me, my dad brought me home a copy of "Rich Dad Poor Dad" book when I was like 11 years old.

Andy Neary: I wish I would've had that then. Yes.

hands and I read it like six [: 00:34:00

And what I would like to do instead was get dropped off at Barnes and Noble so I could read all the books I couldn't afford to buy. And they let me do it. And so I used, back in the day when Barnes and Noble used to have like chairs, I would go over and sitting in the business marketing and leadership section and just grab a stack of books and just read them for cover to cover every single day.

And I remember at least a couple of times a couple of like, people that are my age now, it'd be like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm reading books that I can't afford. And they're like, that's crazy. And I'm like, might be, but you know, it was just, it was what I did. So I got the,

y library. You know, like I, [: 00:35:00

And that's where his marketing mindset started. Like kids like that, who had that kind of perspective at that young age. I love those stories hearing you at age 13, to have the cojones be like, I don't wanna go to after school. I wanna go to Barnes and Noble and read, like no kid at that age had that mindset. And it's not a surprise you're having, it's not a surprise. You're successful.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, it didn't help with the teasing on campus, but it did help with growing. It did help with growing my business later in life. And actually if I have my high school yearbook somewhere in, you know, collecting dust somewhere, and it did say on, you know, they put the, you know, most likely to, you know, likely live in your parents' basement or whatever it was. Mine was most likely to be in Millionaire. And I'm like, I haven't reached that yet, but.

Andy Neary: Oh, there you go. That's awesome.

Richard Matthews: My [: 00:36:00

Andy Neary: I didn't know, I know better back then, but that is something I would've loved to win in high school.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. My so all that's just to say my friends recognized that I was nuts early on. So, that was you know, I was one of those kids that like I convinced my dad to give me a loan for first stuff. I was like, can you gimme 50 bucks? I'll pay you back 10% interest, which is like, I don't know, was like 55 bucks back.

And take me to the big box store, which was smart and final. If those are, I dunno if those are everywhere, but it's like a miniature Costco. And so, we got to buy, I got buy all the big chocolate bars, like the big fat ones that you can't get on campus. And I stuffed my backpack full of them, didn't have room for my schoolwork, wasn't gonna bring my schoolwork with me.

And I made about, made about: 1500

etween. Profit and like your [: 00:37:00

And then,

Andy Neary: Time to raise your prices.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, so anyways, that was my first couple of lessons there.

ad a lot longer success than [: 00:38:00

Richard Matthews: Yeah. So the reason I tell the story actually is for our audience, just to give like a juxtaposition 'cause I also didn't have the entrepreneur people around me, so I had to go and find them. And for me, I found them in books, right? Like, that's where I was finding them. And that's like, it's just an encouragement that like, hey, if you don't have those voices around you, they exist.

Right? Whether it's Barnes, Noble, or the library, or nowadays podcasts and YouTube and stuff like this, subscribe to a show like this one, or, I imagine your show is very similar, right? To pick up these mindsets and learn from people who are who can teach you the uh, what the journey looks like.

oth grew up here in Wisconsin: 2014

The people you read about in [: 00:39:00

And that's where that journey started, where I was like, wow, if I just take the time to spend. Every week getting better at something. Where am I gonna be 5 or 10 years from now? But it didn't happen until I found myself in a place where I was kind of starting over in Colorado and I was seeking those mentors to help me. And that's really where my personal development journey began.

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Andy Neary: And it hasn't slowed down since. And I think if there's one thing I can owe to me sitting here at age 46, with my own business successfully growing, it's because of that journey that started 10 years ago.

e, know, if you get into the [: 00:40:00

And the reason it stuck, and I was, I couldn't always have told you it in this language, this is more recent language in my life, but the idea that if you're not growing, you are dying. Like a shark, if a shark's not swimming, they die. Like they have to be in constant motion, right? You know, or a fruit on a tree. Like it's either ripening or it's rotting, right? And so you either are growing or you're dying, and that's really your only options. And so for me, it sort of started this lifelong obsession with picking up new skills. And so I'm constantly, like, I've got the stuff that I'm learning in my business, but I always have something else that I'm working on learning.

Like at the current moment in time, I'm learning piano and I'm learning to juggle. And those two things go together. By the way, I started learning piano and realized I couldn't get my left hand to work. So I started learning to juggle, which has really helped with the left hand part. And so it's like

Andy Neary: That's awesome.

ano, learning to juggle. But [: 00:41:00

It's not even the idea that I want to be, become a master at any of these areas. It's just constantly working that brain pathway of learning how to learn, right? Learning how to learn things. And then you get to a point now and I've been passing the skill onto my son is like, you can pick up skills really fast.

And like to the point that it blows other people away. They're like, how do you pick up skills like that? I'm like, because the skill that I work on the most is the skill of learning how to learn. And like if I could pass anything on to someone and be like, Hey, if you want a superpower in life that you can develop like that, you can just create for yourself, learn how to learn.

ing the video, it looks like [: 00:42:00

It says what skill are you gonna learn or improve upon? And right now, Richard, I'm in the season of practicing to become a better golfer. I have a lot of friends who are really good golfers and I'm sick of playing with them and getting my buck kicked and donating money 'cause we always had to play for money and I never win.

So I said, I'm gonna put the time in to get better and get the instruction. But what you just said, the part I love about the most is we have a indoor simulator, two minutes from our house. I love going over there and practicing one shot a hundred times in a row.

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Andy Neary: Same shot. One over and over and over. And that process of getting better, the process of learning is where the success is. And we actually have a rule in our company, you'll love this. I make our employees pick one mental and or physical challenge every single quarter they have to partake in.

Richard Matthews: Nice.

Andy Neary: And what that [: 00:43:00

Richard Matthews: Just pick something and do it.

Andy Neary: You're gonna constantly get better if you do.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. Yeah. That is absolutely true, and it's one of the things that, like I said, it's. I've been doing it for a long time, but I've only recently started to realize that it's a differentiator, in between people who stagnate and people who continue to thrive. Right? And you can see it consistently in every category of life, the people who like you don't have to go off the, you know, like as you age, you don't have to get worse.

have to get older, you don't [: 00:44:00

Andy Neary: Yep.

Richard Matthews: Right. If you talk to people who are constantly learning and picking up skills and challenging themselves, they don't have midlife crisis is because they're living life. Right? And so the thing that has like the most recent sort of like light bulb moment for me. Has been how that ties back into storytelling.

ling is the baseline of like [: 00:45:00

And so for me, one of the things I've realized is that the collection of skills means that you are constantly putting yourself into new places, right? And doing new things. And trying new things. Whether it's, you know, if you want to have a good story to tell. You have to live a good story, right? You have to have good food, you have to have good experiences, you have to have good friends, you have to have good sex, you have to do all of these things.

You have to actually live life. And when you do that, those things form the foundation of your ability to tell a story, right? And the more you live, the better your story you can tell. And that will absolutely impact the bottom line of your business. If you learn to tell stories about your business and your life and how your life and business fit together.

with insurance teams, one of [: 00:46:00

If you wanna get their attention, you have to be able to tell a story they can put themselves into, and I really believe a good marketing message, which is storytelling, comes down to answering three questions. Who are you talking to? What are you saying, and where are you saying it?

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Andy Neary: If you get clear on those three things, who are you talking to? What are you saying and where are you saying it? You're gonna have effective marketing as long as you take the time to sit down and really understand who your prospect is.

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Andy Neary: You build, to your point, the storytelling, you build a good story that draws them in. You're gonna be effective with your marketing. And I see too many agencies in the insurance industry want to go right to the metrics or go to the looks of marketing and they skip the message, and that's why they're wasting money on marketing. I start with the message the storytelling marketing will take care itself.

flip into the next question [: 00:47:00

So just like every Superman has his kryptonite or wonder woman can't remove her bracelets of victory without going mad, you've probably had a flaw that's held you back in your business, something you struggled with. For me, it was a couple of things. I struggled with perfectionism for a long time where I was like, if it wasn't perfect, I wouldn't ship it, which means I was shipping nothing 'cause nothing's perfect.

And the other one I struggled with for a long time was lack of self-care, which really brought it self out and not having a good relationship with time, not having good boundaries with my clients and stuff like that. And you know, there was probably another one too is being a visionary but lacking the discipline to implement, right?

Like I had a lot of those things I had to work on fixing them. So, but I think more important than what is the flaw is how have you worked to overcome it? So our audience might learn a little bit from your experience there.

Andy Neary: Yeah, I, there's two that stand out. Number one, I am a natural born people pleaser.

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

and their priorities on your [: 00:48:00

And then the second one would be, I kind of tie this to being an athlete. It's tying my self-worth into the results I create. I think that's a trap a lot of athletes get themselves into as they tie their worth into the result they create. And so they're in this up and down. Like when I was a pitcher, if I was four in one with a 2.0 ERAI was awesome. If I was one in four with a 4.5 ERA, I sucked.

ollow the process, no matter [: 00:49:00

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Andy Neary: Just knowing that failure has nothing to do with who you are. It's just your plan fail. Figure out a new plan and try something else.

Richard Matthews: That's a hard lesson. And I'm still working on that myself. I have a thing, or in Woodward, Chris Brady, they wrote a book called "The Launching, a Leadership Revolution". They talk about this concept called plan, do, check and adjust. And which I, which has been sort of like how I've worked through that whole, like not tying my self-worth to my results 'cause you know, as an entrepreneur, you've lots of failing, right? It's, you know, a failures for one win and the one win makes for all the losses kind of thing. That's the game playing. And so you have to know that and realize that, like, that's where you know, we work on celebrating our failures, right? And celebrating our, you know, the solitude.

s a mindset that you have to [: 00:50:00

Andy Neary: People-pleasing.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. So people-pleasing aspect is I think it's really interesting to me because we get into that people-pleasing mind a lot for our business. And one of the things that like a huge lifeful moment for me was is that you have to learn say no before you learn how to say yes. Right? And we get into the trap as entrepreneurs learning how to say yes first without first knowing how to say no. And I don't have a well thought out like answer for this yet, but like, I've got my work in progress sort of like idea here is it for me, it was learning in my business what to say no to that allowed me to have massive growth.

And so [: 00:51:00

And you realize that, like, that comes down to that dollar chasing things. Like, Hey, if I offer, if I say yes to this, I can add more dollars to the bottom line. And then, you know, you go back to that patience, consistency, persistency, that kind of stuff. If you'll just say no, learn to say no to all the things that are outside of your offer, right?

opened the doors to all the [: 00:52:00

And so like in early in: 2023

And so like we did that all last year and it was like we started saying yes to things like cold marketing and started saying yes to affiliate outreach stuff. And we started saying yes to stages and we started saying yes to like all sorts of things that we could say yes to that fit in our lane. And it caused pain, obviously. Like you can't, you know, it was say yes till it hurts, was the goal that I was going for. And so we did that. And then you start working on how to fix the pain that's saying yes creates, but now you're saying yes in the right categories, you're saying yes to the things that are actually gonna grow your business.

s gonna allow you to say yes [: 00:53:00

Andy Neary: No, it's you got me thinking because we just had that moment in the fourth quarter. You know, I think back when Steve Jobs came back to Apple. At the time he came back, I wanna say they offered something like 300 products he came back and he said Scrap it. We're narrowing it down to four. And that's when they came out with the iPad, iPod, the iMac and then the iPhone and the rest is history.

We just had that moment in our business in Q4 where we were probably offering a lot of different things, but then we got really clear that, you know what, we only offer four things. We don't do anything else. Everything else is a no.

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Andy Neary: And if what we are engaging in doesn't help us grow our business in one of those four buckets or buy back our time, it's a no.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. You learn to say no.

it hurt 'cause I'm a guy who [: 00:54:00

Richard Matthews: So the, since you know, I'm only a few quarters ahead of you on that whole journey of learning to say, you know, no to all the right things is once you say no, and you know what you're saying no, to just open yourself to saying yes to everything that fits, right? Like if it fits, say yes to it. And then figure out how to make it happen afterwards.

Right. And that was, it was one of the things like, you know, I guess my business associate a who told me that he was like, he is like, if you want massive growth, say yes till it hurts, right? But you can't say yes you learn to say no. So like now that you've mastered what you're saying no to that opens that door to say yes to a whole bunch of things and.

hat's the being open to yes. [: 00:55:00

Richard Matthews: Everything else would be a no. And it's, you know, in the world of talking about superpowers, that's one of those things, it's another superpower you can develop, right? You can develop the ability to say no. And then once you've developed the ability to say no, it gives you the ability to say yes and saying yes to the right things is really what skyrockets growth.

Andy Neary: A hundred percent. That's a great way of saying it. Say yes to the right things. Sounds pretty simple a lot harder to implement.

Richard Matthews: It's hard to implement. Like I spent a good, I don't know, 20 years in my business saying yes to all the wrong things because I started with saying yes and not with saying no. So you know, I learned that, you know, that one of my favorite things is you know, lesson repeated until lesson learned, I spent a lot of time. Repeating that lesson until it sunk in.

t like a lot of people spend [: 00:56:00

You really haven't gotten any better. And I think you're, the point you're making is, especially in the world of entrepreneurism, you're gonna fail. And the more you are okay with failing and let it to, and let and learn from it, the faster you're gonna grow.

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. That is exactly what I'm saying. So.

Andy Neary: It's that valley of sucktitude, you call it.

Richard Matthews: Yeah the great suckitude. So I got a couple more questions for here. I'll talk about, about your common enemy, right? So every superhero has an arch nemesis, right? And it's the thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world.

In the world of business, we put takes on a lot of forms, but generally speaking for this show, we put in the context of your clients. And it's a mindset or a flaw that they come to you with, that you constantly have to fight to overcome so that you can actually get them the result that they came to you for in the first place.

ping your producers actually [: 00:57:00

Andy Neary: It's one thing that leads to the other. It's a lack of clarity. And without clarity, they're not confident and without confidence they're not consistent. And the real culprit, the real enemy in our industry is outdated training. A lot of people come in our industry wide-eyed, bright-eyed, ready to go, but they're kind of left out on their own to figure it out how to win or they're given training that's 30, 40 years old. And what happens is they quickly become burnt out, dejected. They're driven, but they're dejected. And the second they lose clarity, they lose confidence. The second they lose confidence, they lose consistency. And right now, the reason they're not winning is they're just not consistent.

They don't have a weekly plan. They can execute to have success. And so what we're bringing them, Richard, is modern marketing. A modern marketing plan to go out and build credibility with prospects so they can walk in the doors of prospects with credibility and trust build. And when they have that clarity, they will be confident. And when they have the confidence, they'll be consistent. One breeds off the other.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. [: 00:58:00

Right? And so, like, I know in the insurance world this is probably one of those outdated rules, but it's like, are you making your 20 calls a day? Right. Like, and you can control the 20, making 20 calls. You can't control what's gonna happen on those calls. That's the result. You don't get to control the result. You get to control the input.

So you have to be able to consistently put in the things that you can do. Right? You have to, you know, for us it's show up on our podcast every week, right? Like that consistently of doing that work is what leads to the results. And so to your point they get the dejection happens because they're not getting the result because they're trying to focus on controlling the results. And you can't control the result. You can only control the input.

year. There really won't be [: 00:59:00

Richard Matthews: Yeah.

Andy Neary: Cool. Now, you could call that a more traditional form of prospecting, but hey, cold calling is still part of the game plan. But here's what separates the winners and the losers. A loser, and I used the word to describe somebody who's not winning. It's not about their self-worth a loser is somebody who'll just pick up the phone 20 times a day and not figure out why it's not working. They won't try to get better. They're literally just trying to check, make 20 check marks a day.

A winner's gonna go. Okay. I went, oh, for 20 today. What can I do tomorrow to improve my message? Where can I go study about cold calling to get better? And how can I come back tomorrow a better cold caller than I was today? And even if I don't have more success tomorrow than I had today, I'm willing to show up the next day and the day after that because I know if I put the reps in, I'm gonna get better. That's what separates people.

do, I still do all the sales [: 01:00:00

And we're gonna have like a whole training library of like, Hey, here's the picture, the work, here's didn't, right? And we're doing the same thing with like the questions our clients ask us or potential clients ask us, we're gonna turn 'em into a whole FAQ library. So we're like, we're reviewing the work that we're doing and looking at how do we make this message better? How do we make it connect better? How do we shorten it and be more brief with what we're saying?

And you use those reps to practice, right? And on your, you know, every time you get on your pitch you can adjust something, you can change a little bit, see how it works, right? Because every time you get on the phone, you get an opportunity to try again and to be a little better this time than you were last time. And that's how you get better, is you put in the reps and, you know, apply the persistency, I guess to trying to get better.

Andy Neary: 100%

right? The flip side of your [: 01:01:00

So just like you know, Batman fights to save Gotham or Spider-Man fights to save New York or Google fights to index and categorize all the world's information. What is it that you're fighting for with your business? What's your mission, so to speak.

Andy Neary: Yeah. We have two north stars we apply, that drives us every week. Number one, we create our content. Our goal with our content, Richard, is to help 25,000 insurance producers sell their first $250,000. So if you go look at our content on social media, it's really geared for those early stage insurance producers who are just trying to sell their first 250,000.

We've built a membership site, which has become one of our main revenue streams, and the whole mission with the membership site is to help a thousand producers get to a million bucks. So we apply this approach where content, it's free, right? Free content to help you sell your first 250, our membership sites, to get you to a million bucks and then at a million bucks.

That's our mission. I see a [: 01:02:00

And so when I saw that gap and I knew I had a gift with coaching, I said, we're gonna fill that gap and we're gonna give 'em the training and modern training, especially to teach them how to win today. If the industry doesn't wanna do it, we'll do it for 'em. And we have seen that gap. We feel proud, we feel we're filling that gap.

And I know it's creating a lot of excitement in the insurance industry 'cause when we work with people, we get a lot of feedback that this is very different than what they're used to and that's what I love to hear.

Richard Matthews: That's awesome. Yeah. I we feel the same way, right? A lot of the, you know, people who come and work with us, we obviously we're in very different spaces, but like that message at the end of the day, like, this solves a problem that I had. Like, that's what we're going for. And so I love that.

The hero show will be right back.

orks that builds your brand, [: 01:03:00

You felt the pain of pouring eight to 10 hours of work into just. Getting one hour of content published and promoted all over the place. You see the drain on your resources, but you do it anyways cuz you know how powerful it is. Heck, you've probably even tried some of those automated solutions and ended up with stuff that makes your brand look cheesy and cheap.

That's not helping grow your business. Don't give up though. The struggle ends. Now. Introducing Push Button podcasts, a done for you service that will help you get your show out every single week without you lifting a finger. After you've pushed that stop record button, we handle everything else.

Uploading, editing, transcribing, writing, research, graphics, publication, and promotion. All done by real humans who know, understand, and care about your brand. Almost as much as you do empowered by our own proprietary technology, our team will let you get back to doing what you love while we handle the rest.

ce with us and see the power [: 01:04:00

Again, that's push button podcast.com/hero. See you there.

And now back to the Hero show.

Richard Matthews: So for my audience who's watches us regularly, I'm gonna skip a couple of our regular questions 'cause we're getting long in our conversation here. But I have one more question I wanna ask you. And it's your guiding principles, right? One of the things that makes heroes heroic is that they live by a code where since Batman never kills his enemies, he only ever brings 'em to Arkham Asylum.

So as we wrap up the interview, I wanna talk about the top one, maybe two principles that you live your life by, run your business by. Maybe something you wish you'd known as you when you started your career, your life, you know, all those years ago.

business, but you know, they [: 01:05:00

And so that is probably the biggest guiding principle for me is whatever I'm gonna teach you to do, I want you to have the trust. I'm actually still doing it and getting better at it myself.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. That's wonderful. Right? We don't offer a coaching business, but we run the same kind of thing. I, for whatever reason we're in the service space. Our businesses, our clients always ask us for like, you know, their our,

our,

uh.

expertise in different areas. So we end up doing coaching regardless, even though that's not what people pay us for.

buy is buying ads and borrow [: 01:06:00

And then the blitz is like cold outreach and stuff like that. And so when people talk to me about our business I'm like, listen, these are the four categories you'd be running leads in. Build is like what we teach at Push Button Podcast, what we actually implement for people. But in our own business, we do all four of them, right? We fit, we have stuff going in all four of these categories, and here's what it looks like in our business, right? And so when I'm telling, you know, I say, Hey, you should use our service. I was like, we use our service internally.

Our business is listed as one of our clients. We have a whole slot on one of our clients slots, and we do all of our own stuff. And then we do same thing in all those other categories. And I was like, so when I recommend you to do it, I'm not saying you should do it, and I don't. Right? We do these things for our own business. We actually run three podcasts internally. So we have three clients slots for our business, right?

onna do internally. And then [: 01:07:00

Andy Neary: That's awesome. Nope it's what you guys have built. I'm only getting a quick, you know, an early look at this. It looks pretty impressive, man. And you know, nothing says credibility when you your own client.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. You run your own stuff, right? That's it was actually, it was one of those game-changing moments where you realize, you're like, oh, I should probably doing this myself. Right?

Andy Neary: Well, I'll give you a great example. So we have a program called the Social Media Sales Academy. It's a six week course I teach where we teach insurance professionals how to use LinkedIn and content on LinkedIn to grow their business. And the best thing I love talking about that is I ask people, do you like the way I create content on LinkedIn? Do you like our content? Yes. I'm going to teach you how we do it.

Richard Matthews: Yeah. Like it's,

h out there than if you like [: 01:08:00

Richard Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that is a great place to wrap our interview, right? Run your business with integrity, do the things you say you're gonna do that kind of stuff, and actually show up and do the work that you're doing, you recommend your clients do. And so I do wrap every interview with something I call the Heroes Challenge.

And I do this to help get access to stories that we might not otherwise find on our own. So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network who you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they first names or find? And why do you think they should come share their story with us on The Hero Show? First person that comes to mind for you.

n Europe for eight years and [: 01:09:00

Richard Matthews: That's cool.

Andy Neary: It's his mindset. His mindset is so, and he's now an unbelievable entrepreneur as a business consultant to others. And he is got a program called "Work On Your Game Academy". And so yeah, he is the first guy that comes to my mind.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Well, we'll see if we can reach out later and get an introduction to him. But on this show, and you know, we have the send off in comic books. There's always the crowd of people at the end who are cheering and clapping for their acts of heroism. So as we close where can people find you? Where can they light up the bat signal, so to speak and say, Hey Andy, we'd love for help. And then more importantly than where is who are the right types of people to actually reach out.

Andy Neary: Yeah. Number one, two places you can connect with me. Go to LinkedIn. We have a huge following there. Andy Neary, N-E-A-R-Y. I also have a video recording if people wanna watch it on our brand. Our four marketing pillars. If they wanna go to CompleteGamePlayBook.com they can go grab that if they like. And then the last question.

What was the last question again?

Richard Matthews: Right types of people to reach out?

ople. We work with insurance [: 01:10:00

So we, if they are an insurance professional, we can serve 'em.

Richard Matthews: Absolutely. And I know personally at least one of our listeners is an insurance specialist 'cause they told me a couple weeks ago that they were starting their insurance training for sale. So if you're listening, reach out to Andy and and get the training. And you know, thank you so much today for coming on and sharing your story.

Andy, I really appreciate just getting to hear your perspective and hear what it is that you guys do. It's been fascinating. Before we hit this stop record button, you have any final words of wisdom for my audience?

Andy Neary: I go back to what my, wall behind me says, build builds. success comes by way of being consistent, persistent, and patient, and most of all, enjoy the journey. This is a long road and you gotta play the infinite game, remember, your job is just to keep the game going.

Richard Matthews: Awesome. Thank you very much Andy. Appreciate your time today.

Andy Neary: You bet. Thank you, Richard.

​

[: 01:11:00