Read The Transcript

 [0:02] Hey it's a great day and we are.
Is another rebroadcast and we have another special guest.

[0:11] Frank is actually also a live linkedinlive Broadcaster. That is good.
Getting on the move. He's been doing video for a while so we want to dive into how he's using video and what he's using and how he how it impacts his business.
So Frank good morning thanks for joining us today and welcome to The Pirate broadcast.

[0:34] Hey good morning Russ. I have to admit I was dreaming last night hopefully that this was in studio show because I believe it a little bit warmer in Arizona than in New York City today.

[0:47] Are you guys getting pummeled today.

[0:50] No just cold and I live on Long Island on the water.

[0:53] So yeah yeah chilly. That cool breeze off the water kind of gets a chill factor at

the Shore shows that.

[1:03] So thanks for having me I know I'm a pirate now and I got to admit I thought that when I first got invited that we were going to have some cocktails maybe do a little plundering but this is,
a different kind of piracy where we're going to do some plundering for sure we're going to plunder into your bounty of nuggets of knowledge and share that stuff with the with the community here because,
the one thing that I want to do is add value.

[1:30] And one of the things that I noticed about you is that.

[1:35] The financial planning insurance and this kind of industry is fairly limited in

what you can say and what you can do in terms of promises and you know things that conversations you can have online,
and you're taking the next step and really utilizing video and you have a video series and I want to talk about how it has impacted your business,
how it has positioned you as an authority and in some of the strategies that you use that others could benefit from here in the community.

[2:09] Sure. Great yeah great lead in Russ. So there certainly is a tremendous compliance element in certain industries when you're publicly broadcasting.
Fortunately for me I'm using my public broadcast and my linkedin video series. I'm doing it more to just lay the base as as a thought leader as someone with you know over two decades of sales experience.
I want to help people out to help people sell better.
That's really the goal of mine length and presence. No one ever wakes up in the morning and goes oh gee I look a little under insured I'd better see who's on my show then feed this morning and go buy some.

[2:50] That's not going to happen. Are going to have assurances from today.

[2:55] Yeah. So I'm not marketing my my insurance business directly through LinkedIn.
I'm looking more to help salespeople be a better version of themselves.
I started back in about August or so I started with a tip Tuesday that's my hashtag tip Tuesday video series.
And the real reason I started it was because there's so many sales people that oscillate in their careers right.
I've been in the top 1 percent of my industry I've been bankrupt and I've been everywhere in between.
And when you once you're committed to sales.

[3:33] It's kind of what you do. There is no left turn 20 years down the line into okay I'll just become a you know a corporate so-and-so at this point.
So when you're in your all in.
I started this series really to rebuild the battle plan of my own business and get more

consistency.
I accumulated all of the trip tricks and tips and systems and processes that I had been using successfully and I started to just catalog them all together and decided to share

them.
It's tremendously helped my own business and I'm getting tons of feedback from

people out there in the community.
I actually get text messages around 12:00 noon or 1:00 p.m. on Tuesdays from people saying Hey where's the tip today.

[4:20] Now that I'm sitting there looking for it.

[4:22] So that is so the tip Tuesday video series is really it's about helping other salespeople get more consistency get documented systems and processes because consistency is really the key to everything.
I mean you know you do a daily show right.
If you don't show up on the air for a couple of days people are gonna start wondering hey where's Russ what's going on Russ.

[4:44] You know you brought up a couple of key points I want to dive in on one Consistency with anything is it's really important to understand the power of consistency,
you know you think about OK what can I accomplished today,
or you think of a big goal.
And if you chip away at that goal daily for a year you know you can make a lot further than you imagine.

[5:09] And I think people underestimate their ability to achieve goals like that because they're always thinking of the you know the elephant in the room.
You know the big goal.
And I think that that's counterproductive in a lot of ways and I'm sure that you've talked about that before the selling process is certainly let's just break it down to simple steps, OK?
Is this step or this stage of what I'm doing working toward my goal.
Is this helping me or hindering me.
You know it's a process of procrastination. What is it.

[5:44] Right? It's always one of those two things. It's one of those two things.

[5:48] And I'm and I've never been in sales and I've,
I've always primarily been on the delivery side and it's existing I always think of this assisting the process side which in turns develop sales as well.
And so it's one of those things that we all need help with.
So what are what are a few tips that you really can gravitate toward as a sharing on the pirate broadcasts here.
Sure. Six simple tips that we can take away and be motivated.

[6:25] Yeah, you're right up my alley with that lead and I've got to tell you right. I did look at your profile,
as part of my series. I give away from time to time things I call Morizioisms.  What a Morizioism is is basically advice offered as a way to better your business process or better your life process.
And I have a video that talks about by the inch. It's a cinch.
And by the yard it's hard.
And I think that focus is exactly knowing what you're talking about. You know too many times people look at the end goal. And say one of two things either hey I'm going to dive in and I'm going to go get that,
and I'm going to I'm going to eat that whole apple in one bite and you're probably going to choke not knowing you know that you need to take it one bite at a time.
And then the other thing that can happen is you know the opposite as people look at the end game and it's too daunting it's too big.
And it freezes them into inaction because they don't feel like any action they can take is going to be grand enough to get them close and it really is.
I mean marketing and sales and processes.
It's a long term thing. It's a journey. It's not a destination. It's something that you have to continue to work on daily.
I've found that the one of the easy ways to to move inch by inch is by having a written plan so you know I'm sure as as a show producer last night you looked at who your guest was going to be today.
You talked of you. You wrote down what you're flow for the show was going to be you did a little research. You had a plan.
You know that sometime later today you're going to edit this broadcast you're going to turn it into a podcast. It's going to get pushed out wherever it needs to get pushed out.
So you have a plan. It's written down.
You're certainly not flying by the seat of your pants. Neither am I.

[8:23] So when the easiest thing Our job is to make it look like we're flying.

[8:29] Absolutely. You know one of the easiest things that you can do is is literally every night before you put your head down on the pillow. Look at what tomorrow's schedule is going to be.
Schedule the revenue producing activities schedule what's most important and I try to stay 80 percent accountable to my schedule because I'm realistic and things happen and clients call it and you know late night life happens.
So yeah. So going by the inch is definitely is definitely going to get you there faster and you've got to write it down or else you really don't know where you fly.

[9:02] Yeah I do believe in and mapping out the day.
No no what activities I have to knock off the list in order to accomplish.
And the other thing I think it's really important that you mentioned was you know knowing what your expectations what your output is.
Because I'm I'm all about relationships. You know I you know I'm not.

[9:29] I'm not shooting just for the numbers. I'm shooting for the development of the relationship I can have with somebody like yourself.
You know there's a strategy behind the pirate broadcast and it's like OK if I have you know if I called you up next month you would remember my name.
It's like we have a relationship. We have an understanding that we're doing live video.
You know this is a show and you know later today I'm going to send you a link and you're going to be on my blog and you're going to be on a podcast and you're gonna be on,
Twitter and know all of these other platforms and you know oh so you have an opportunity to share your highlights,
with your community and say Hey I was on the show doing this thing talking about this product process you know and it's like right.
So if I if I shine the light on you and help you find your light you know that that's helps the relationship. Right.
Of course it's not like I'm selling you insurance or anything but it's like bridges having a conversation right.
Right. And that's the beauty of it. I think that's that's the true beauty of it is is the guard is relaxed.
We're not. There's no expectations here. We can share some valuable information with the community that I think will.
And I'd just like to share that. Jeff Young my guy Nick Dorsey Elizabeth Michelle our caught site.

[10:58] All of these people are in here. It's on it's actually on a holiday for a lot of people because it's Martin Luther King Day in the U.S.
So I just want to remind everybody that this is Frank.
Frank is in the insurance industry that's normally regulated considerably more than others.
Well with the financial institutions as well. Sure. And Sharon thinks about sales so.

[11:26] So Frank one of the things that I know a lot of people getting this scarcity mode and they just chase out they you know and that's where the spam comes from. That's where the reactionary tactics come from.
How can we get out of that phase and into a phase where it's what's more systematic and more process. How do you.
What can we do to try to get out of. It's like I gotta I gotta I gotta call I gotta make a hundred calls today. Always be closing kind of mentality.
I think that's kind of done for a little bit.

[12:03] Unfortunately a lot of sales people fall into that.
I'll call it a trap right. They don't have a long enough view.
They either want immediate results because it's their personality or they need immediate results because they've backed their way into a position now.
Right. And one of the most dangerous ways to ever try to sell is when you need the sale more than the prospect does right.
They're always going to smell it. It's going to come right through like you said we've all gotten those those spams in our message box on linked and you know you connected with me three minutes ago Hey I got this brand new system for you.

[12:41] You want to show it to you you know who man could do a parody of that. Who manages the IP in your office? You know I certainly get those.

[12:49] No messages. How do we avoid it is really.
You have to have a business plan and it's not just oh I'm gonna do X amount of stuff.
It has to have to be actions tied to every part of it.
And like you mentioned before us every action is either moving toward or away.
Your stated goal and once you deviate from that plan you're unfortunately headed for quicksand but it's not the quicksand.
I mean let me divert for a second I thought quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem in my life when I was a child because basically every TV show you know that man.
Yeah we go to quicksand that type of quicksand that makes you know a salesman get over pushy let's call it for lack of a better term is the one that starts out very slow and then really accelerates.
So if you get if you deviate from your plan it doesn't take long to put yourself in a bad position.

[13:44] You know the other way and the other way to combat that is you know it's something that you were just talking about.
It's relationships are the key to everything. Right.
And selling has to be relationship based. I can tell you that the majority of my business is not.
I wouldn't call it incoming. Like I said Nobody ever picks up the phone to buy insurance but it's incoming in the sense that the introductions come from people in my network that I have relationships with,
nations who are investing time in a set of people that are like minded and want have a symbiotic relationship where they're going to help you and you're going to help them. Then it's going to start happening.
One of the other things I do on my LinkedIn page I have it's the Friday fix up.
So if you ever pop in if I ever pop up on your feet on a Friday or if you follow the hashtag Friday fix up you're going to see every Friday I tell a quick story about who did I connect this week.

[14:40] Right. And why.

[14:42] That's great. If you ask people to connect you you know we're here in this community this isn't this isn't a social network.
We're not here for friends. We're here for relationships but with relationships that lead to business.
So if you ask for an introduction and someone is hesitant to give it to you you're probably not developing the best relationship with that might be time to move on.

[15:03] Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're spot on with that because you know even if you don't have any agenda or criteria it's nice to reach out to people and say hi tech and in how you doing.
Love to hear from you. And it's just the thing that makes it so valuable especially linked in and I don't know if you sell insurance nationally and internationally or resort.
However the fact that we can be connected here you're you're in New York you're out on Long Island reason Your Highness off because cold weather,
is known it's probably 70 degrees it's in the fact that we actually have this connection and we can actually have a conversation and people could be listening in our conversation like we're you know yelling across the room at or at a coffee shop.
This is pretty amazing.
It is amazing and it changes the landscape of how we operate.
So I want to dive down a little bit and talk about how you feel.
Video has has kind of changed the landscape for your communication to your Tuesday tips your Friday mentions.
You know some of the things that you do and what does that look like before and after.
And what are the challenges you have with that.

[16:27] Yeah I mean video is the game changer right. I would say this for the first time in my career I really feel like I kind of jumped on something maybe not in the beginning but in its infancy and.
By just doing it by just jumping in and not worrying about production value and editing and splicing everything up and making it fancy.
I just got started and what it's done for my career is it's allowed me on a screen to become me in your living room.
Right. So insurance guys are typically known for their personalities.

[17:11] I’ve known a person before but you had to have a conversation with them to figure that out right.
So I don't have the luxury of having a conversation with thousands of folks in my feed until the advent of video came on and even though I originally started out you know I started the series where it's one way where people are just listening to me,
they're seeing my personality they're understanding,
my passion it's coming through in not only the way in which I deliver it but the content that I'm delivering.
So it's quite easy creating a one way relationship and maybe getting you to the phone call maybe getting you to the discovery coffee or hey let's get together let's talk I want to get to know you so the game changer for me has been,
I get to differentiate myself by putting out,
whatever it is that this is I'm now getting an opportunity to put it out there and before I was just words on a screen and I'm one of hundreds of thousands in my field,
Yeah well.

[18:17] And here's the thing that I really enjoy and appreciate about that is that because we can use video and it doesn't have to be overly produced and it can be very simple.
It's really about if you go to an event or you go to a meeting and they've seen your video,
the bridge between the conversation of who are you too.


[18:48] I saw it I sell it there's a more of a personable approach to the conversation it removes kind of the the first few awkward moments in the conversation.
Yeah. Who are you and why am I talking to you a moment versus Oh hey Frank I sawwe're connected on LinkedIn I've had people come up to me and say Hey Russ we're connected on LinkedIn I see your content and I just wanted to say hi.
Yeah. Okay great. Awesome. Then you start the conversation right.

[19:20] They already know who you are and they already know what you do.

[19:24] So if people like you and they need your service and you're top of mind because you're doing video every week are you reminding them in the feed.

[19:33] They're at least going to give you the opportunity to have a conversation. Can you help me Frank? I have to solve this problem.
I know you have a solution that may work for me and we do something together.

[19:46] True story I just happen to me a couple of weeks ago in my own town at home where my office is nowhere near.
I mean a Chinese restaurant picking up takeout and guy next to me online taps me on the shoulder and says Hey are you. You're frank. Tip Tuesday guy. Right.

[20:03] And I was like Well not really.

[20:04] He's like Yeah. And as it turns out we're in the same business we're in the same industry. He's in insurance at another firm.
And he said I watch your videos every week to really help with my business. And I was like That's fantastic.

[20:18] That's exactly what exactly that resulted in. All right. How was it. That was it.
That was it. So you know one of the things that I believe in and I've been doing a bit better in advertising since 85 so I've seen the entire scope and radio and television and broadcasts and things like that.
And one of the things that I think is really fascinating is a lot of people would love to do what we're doing right now.
Only the technology is the limiting factor you know.
And so I am playing with this idea of helping others produce shows that they can get on line and do this kind of thing.
And I think it's I think would be a valuable opportunity to broadcast it gets more people on there even though I do it every day.
I mean that's a lot. But at the end of the year that's only 300 and some odd 240 or some odd you know shows so I think that there's room for more people.
What do you have any thoughts about that or would you like similar videos.

[21:26] Yeah I think so. I think what's powerful about the video aspect is that you know they're cataloged right.
So once I get an introduction to somebody like you said they seem interesting to me maybe we've seen each other stuff maybe we've had a conversation or not.
I then know that every once in a while I'm going to go visit them and check out their stuff and replay and I'm going to pick up a nugget here and a nugget there.
I'm going to you know I'm going to gather some value and what it makes me want to do is turn around and give more because I always want to be a net giver in the relationship. I never want to be a net taker.
So I think with more video.
Again with so many different social media networks and so many places where we can read text.

[22:17] It all kind of becomes one big white noise now that someone has a video much more likely to spend a few minutes certainly I mean I have a train commute each way every day.
Sunday night they usually spend a pretty you know when it's not championship Sunday I usually spend some time to get a guy gathering through going through some video.
So yeah I think the more people that jump on the platform the easier it becomes to have that at least initial sense of what someone's personality is.
So you can make an easier decision as to whether or not you want to pursue a relationship with them.
I don't think that as you mentioned the beginning. I don't think technology should be a barrier to anybody.
I did my very first video on my iPhone sitting in the driver's seat of my car because that's where I was inspired to do it. And you know what.
Maurizio is a number one is doing something actually means and doing something I hit record and I put out a minute and a half unedited video and I posted it immediately and that was really the beginning and here I am you know months two months later.
I mean I'm a guest on the pirate broadcast. I mean what could be better than asking me at this stage of my broadcast career.

[23:26] Well it is. Applause You know round a silent applause for Frank for getting started because,
that is that is the key is the key to sales is is the key to relationships is the key to life is you have to be present.
You know every day's a gift and if you wake up you have to be present right.
You have to have you have to be there show up do your work and help others and that's that's the magic.
And what we're doing here is the ability and the opportunity to really you know help someone out even if it's not beneficial.
You know a go giver and you know put it out there and assist people to support people wonder tourniquets you know so many times there's people in front of us there's people behind us and if we can help the people behind us it helps lift us up.
You know that's that's just that's the law of the universe in my opinion that's that's what I believe is,
you know I I help others out and it always comes back to me

So I want to give a shout out to Gabriel and Scott,
Elizabeth cherry so many people. Nick thank you so much.
We're good. Then coffee shop Elizabeth says you know and Angie.

[24:55] Carolyn Gray I'm in Houston this next week so I'll stop to say hi. All these people that join the pirate broadcast and look at the reposts and everything else.
You know it's amazing it's whether you're watching this on on YouTube you're watching this on Periscope. You're watching this on Facebook or LinkedIn or my actual Web site.
My blog post that brings it all together you can catch Frank and you can catch the conversation on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Where do they look for the hashtags.

[25:37] So on Tuesdays you're going to look for #TipTuesday and then and then on Friday you're going to have the #Fridayfixup.
And you know like we said before consistency is the key. So it doesn't just happen organically.
I have it written down in my schedule every week that I have to make sure I'm making good connections for people.
So I have a good story to tell on Friday because I'm encouraging the community to continue to do that for each other.
You know make one connection for somebody and see how that's going to grow and grow and grow.
And I genuinely do do believe that we're all for the most part here for the same common interest. We grow relationships and see what happens.

[26:27] That's really what I'm here for and I really think that you know Linkedin has been so beneficial for my community and my business is the expansion of the message.
You know the ability to reach out and have conversations with people.
It's been very gratifying to meet so many wonderful people around the world.
And you know the barriers the graphic barriers and everything that goes along with that is really just it blows my mind all the time.
You know there's there's challenges you know with anything and you know there's also the kind of challenges like you know 10 minute tips or 10 tips in ten days or you know why video is so successful
some of these people that are doing things you know there's dance for Australia that I am sure you know and there's a lot of things that we can pay attention to.
But the thing that you really want to pay attention to is is being consistent reach out to friends and people you know.

[27:35] You know there's some challenging stories out there it's nice to be you know I believe in kindness I believe kindness is cool and smiles are free so that's that's my motto run and it's really paid off in the long run.
And you know I'm sure that you've seen situations that people didn't have insurance that they didn't have the adequate coverage.
Sure. And it's tragic when that takes.
So if you have insurance industry questions or you have a need for someone to review what you're doing or or why you're doing it you know reach out to Frank make a connection here today.
You know build that relationship before you need it. Not after you need it.

[28:20] No thank you. Russ I certainly believe in that.

[28:23] Yeah. So. So Frank one question if you had to leave with one major key but something that we can actually share with the community today.

[28:38] What would that be.
I mean I'm gonna go back to Morizioism # 1. I think you can apply this to all parts of your life.
It's doing something actually means doing something.
And if you embrace that in any facet of your life you know Hey jump into video Hey.
Make that extra phone call today. Hey there's somebody sitting over there in the coffee shop. They kind of look familiar.
Don't walk away go over and initiate a conversation starter relationship with fellow humans in this community.
So I would say that is you know that is the number one thing that when I wake up every day is on my mind it's what am I going to do today is not what am I going to try.
What am I going to talk about where I'm going to think about is what action am I going to take.
And hopefully my action because it's written down is moving me toward where I want to go instead of way,
fantastic investing get it.

[29:37] You heard it here first with Frank. Frank thank you so much for the for the for the great information everyone go follow Frank watch for his tips watch First Friday,
the fix on its content and all its content.
And I encourage you to you know reach out to someone build a relationship today and #kindnessiscool #Smilesarefree and you enjoy the day.

[30:11] Thank you so much.