INS 003 - Nicholas Ayers on How to Hack Human Behavior

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of The Ryan Hanley Show and today we are talking with the, I want to say wonderful, I want to say tremendous, just incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking Nicholas Ayers, the founder of Made You Look Marketing, one of the premier, if not the premier, insurance advertising course program, I want to say. We'll say philosophical and tactical system for actually getting real leads that produce real results into your agency.
And we go into what that means. So if you haven't picked up on it, this is an insurance specific podcast.
Although you will see that whether you're in the insurance industry or not, the core principles that we discuss around marketing, branding, advertising, lead generation are ubiquitous. It does not matter what industry you're in, and we actually use examples from both the mortgage industry, the real estate industry, and I can tell you firsthand, financial advisors, CPAs, lawyers, really any professional organization or enterprise that falls under the professional designation could take real tactical and core principles from this episode.
It's a ton of fun just because we dive into a bunch of different topics, all of which are going to help you grow your business if you're willing to do the work. Before we get on to the show though, I want to just give you my quick CTA, my call to action.
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Now let's get on to Nick Ayers. It gets, you know, when you're stuck in an office for 10 hours a day, 12 hours a day, you know, but it feels like seven days a week.
Yeah. I have to try to do some sort of change of pace a little bit every once a while.
So yeah, I'll change up the lighting configuration a little bit. And I don't know, it just makes me feel like I'm in a different spot sometimes.
Yeah, I feel that. I feel that.
I, I, sometimes I sit on the right side of the kitchen table and sometimes I sit on the left side of the kitchen table and you know, it feels like a whole new world. Yeah, it feels, you might as well be like, you know, on a beach somewhere at that point.
I, I have an office downstairs. We're actually moving in like a month.
That's why I'm sitting on my kitchen table that, and for the last almost year I haven't needed to sit at the kitchen table. But, um, my wife's like, well, we have this office that we built you downstairs.
Like, why don't you work there? And I'm like, because it's in the basement and we only get so much nice weather here. And like the sun's out.
So I want to be up where the sun is because it's dark and cold yeah where are you guys moving do you guys stay in the same city you guys moving yeah i'm literally moving like two and a half miles from where i live right now don't you uh don't you go to i see you like in your vlogs if you go like to a co-working space right it looks really cool the brick background and all that stuff yeah it's called the t innovation garage. The place actually is pretty sweet.
Um, it's run by a buddy of mine, uh, who was in the PR business and just fell in love with the idea of coworking and put his company in this coworking space that he kind of built up around it. And then, um, now he is kind of transitioning out of the PR world and is building these coworking spaces and he gives them like each one he gives.
So the one in Troy is called the Troy Innovation Garage. He has one in Albany, New York called the Bull Moose Club.
And I think he's looking at a couple other cities right now to build another one. And he wants to take this concept where it's a coworking space, but it's not like a WeWork, which nothing against WeWork, but they're all, you know, if you've been in one, you kind of know what the setup is.
Like these are very specific and unique to the culture of whatever

that town is. So, uh, I, uh, I tried doing the coworking space thing and I feel, uh, like it has

to fit a certain type of person. Um, at least maybe, I don't know if they're all built the same,

but I went into one, I gave it a good year of being in a coworking space. And, um, it's just,

it's, I don't know. Sometimes it's hard if you're used to, if you're not used to working with a lot of ambient people walking around and, and, and talking and stuff, it's, it's a, it's a challenge like to be in an open space.
I feel, because, you know, if you're on the phone at all, or if you're trying to focus and you've got, you know, everybody is, you know, raving about the newest kombucha in the kitchen or something. It's just hard.
I don't know. Maybe it's – maybe I'm just not built for a co-working space.
But they're too distracting. I don't think you're wrong.
I think it definitely takes work. So I – no, I do.
I do. I think it takes – I think it takes – like you have to be – I do agree with you.
You have to be the right kind of person. If you person if you are so in general I do not I have to be in the right mood for small talk like even though I think probably to a certain extent my public persona may be that I'm an extrovert I am I really don't enjoy talking to random people at all um if I'm in the right mood or I'm in that version of who I am then I I love it.
And it's great. And I love talking to people and ask them questions and it's awesome.
But I'd say most of the time, I just like people to leave me alone so I can do my stuff. I find it just to be exhausting.
I actually went to a 40th birthday party on Saturday of a friend of mine and it was fun. And after an hour and a half, I looked at my wife and she looked at me and I was like, I'm good.
Like I've had enough. 90 minutes of fun is enough for me.
Like nothing against my buddy. Like I'm happy for him.
I had had enough small talking and it was like, I'm tired to go. But a long story short, um, I have been a member of that.
Uh, I had been a member of that coworking space since three months before they

opened.

So there's literally like holes in the floor,

like jackhammers going off.

And I just throw like noise canceling.

I have these old Bose noise canceling headphones and it's like,

whap,

I can be put into another world.

So that's how I've made it work,

but it definitely can be distracting at times.

And some people don't get the clue.

No, no. I feel like for most people, it's like a social club.
Like they just go there. They'd rather, instead of going to the bar, they're like, I'll just come here for eight hours a day.
And I'm not an alcoholic if I do this. And so they go to the bar or they go to the co-working space and it's just a social event.
At least it was my experience. And I don't know just the aesthetic of seeing like people moving around and stuff it's like I gotta vote and maybe that's a

bad thing like you're right it does take a lot of work because if I'm focused on my computer like

last thing I want to see is a bunch of people you know doing somersaults or something because

yeah whatever I don't need to see that you know I also feel like an old man like get off my lawn

type guy like no I think well I do here's what would say. I think that I do think as you get more mature into your career, and I don't want to say older, because I don't know that it has anything to do with it.
But I do think as you become, as you be, as you mature into your career, you start to understand the habits and routines that allow you to be the most effective version of yourself. And if performance or some level of performance, if you're holding yourself to that, anything that breaks those habits, you know, you don't appreciate as much because it just, it takes you away from being able to do your best work.
And, you know, if I'm away from the coworking space for a while and I go back, there is there is an adjustment period if I'm there all the time then I just can give people that look like don't f with me like I'm I'm in the middle of something or I'll just straight be like yo man I got something to do like and what you know I mean or you just have to say that to some people yeah it's that east it's that east yeah well you have the luxury of that east coast kind of uh stereotypical attitude like everybody gets it yeah yeah you get. It's socially acceptable to be, to be a prick to people and they just have to deal with it.
And that is one of the advantages to being on the East coast is you just like, look, man, I got these things to do. Like go figure, go, you know, go figure it out.
Yeah. So, well, man, dude, Hey, I, I appreciate you coming on, I just, you know, you're, you're, you're a guy that I've obviously, uh, followed your work for a long time.
We've, you know, gotten to know each other and that's been fun. Um, especially we got to know each other a lot better after I, uh, after I took a, I took a solid swing at your organization.
Um, misinformed, but, but certainly a solid. I forgot all about, honestly, I forgot all about that until you just brought that up.
Yeah. Well, you know what, I was thinking about it the other day.
I was like, I was just thinking about our interactions and stuff in the industry. And obviously, my mind's been, I've just had, you know, I've been in a new space now that I'm kind of back working with insurance industry in general and starting to help some people on a consulting basis.
And then we had our call coming up and I wanted to talk to you because you have so much going on that I'm interested in. And I was like, man, you know, we were kind of knew each other and then peripherally, right? peripherally.
Yeah. Like I knew of your work.
I had seen it and and thought it was good and then um what was on on agency nation radio with Marty I I took a swing at IAOA and uh and he reached out to me well funny so Grant who I just had on yeah uh Grant Botma so to people listening you know the players uh Grant who was on one or two episodes ago he came at me hard on twitter like real hard like yeah you know real aggressive and you were more diplomatic you're like yo man i think you have some misconceptions what we're all about let's get on the phone so then you and i got on the phone from like probably an hour an hour and a half whatever it was and then after that i was like i'm good and i think i went on the next episode and was like i was misinformed like i had heard some things and you know lesson learned don't you know get to know that's a I remember I remember that now and uh you know speaking of like Grant like Grant's like the perfect person uh he's uh he's very uh intellectual and he's very um strategic and like he can strategically think of words right on the spot and um I think you know he he won't probably admit a lot of this but you know he's like one of the worst people to get in an argument with or to get into a uh a verbal battle with because he'll for I've seen him do this others I've seen him just completely annihilate people in the nicest way possible and I'm like man I wish I had that gift because for me I'm just when I want to like bulldoze or something I just bulldoze over and I'm like a bull in a china closet half the time and yeah he has a way of making you feel really dumb that's one of the reasons why i really like hanging out with him because you know he that sounds bad to say but he has a way of making people feel like inadequate and he's not i don't think he's trying to intentionally do that it just comes off that way and so uh yeah i actually remember all that and um you know I think we it's a struggle we all face like you we were younger there's probably a couple years ago now I think probably four years ago yeah you just you're young and you're dumb and you just kind of do stuff I tell people so all the time I'm gonna ride the young and dumb thing as long as I possibly can yeah allowance You know what what it taught me to was, um, uh, I definitely was still very bought into the tribalism of like the national big eye and stuff like that. And, and just these, um, things that today I detest about our industry, not, not, does it, that's not meant to be shot at the association, just tribalism in general are things that I, I, I just detest.
And, um And I actually read this, I just shared it on Twitter, actually, this awesome article today, how empathy is killing social discourse, that there have been three consecutive studies over the last seven years that have found almost the exact same thing. The more empathetic you are, the more apt you are to feel actual joy when someone who's outside your empathy group is in pain.
And the whole point of these studies is like, how can you have people on both sides of a conversation who would classify themselves as very empathetic? you know i mean ultimately hate like literally hate uh with a passion this this other group like how can you how do those two things work in the scene because you think if i'm an empathetic person i'm empathetic to everyone and what they found is that's actually not the case that the more empathetic you consider yourself to be the less empathetic you are to anyone who you consider outside of your circle uh yeah it's that i mean so i think you know tribalism and you know the herd mentality i think is just it's it's something you have to always fight against because it's innate in us it's it's how we have survived it's how we've survived for hundreds of thousands of years is by getting together in a group of people that we find similar interests or affinities with. And we think, okay, if I'm friends with this person, then when the barbarians come over the hill, they're not going to kill me.
You know, this person's going to protect me. And, you know, so it's like, it's natural in us to feel that way.
And it's natural for us to feel empathy towards people with similar affinities. I have a lot of empathy for a lot of people who fit my criteria and mode of what is you know subjectively right or wrong and but for the people that are outside that I'm like well go screw yourself you know yeah figure it out for yourself so I think there's a lot of truth in that yeah it's just it's interesting to me so I think not that that tangent is very important but at that time you know I was also I think I that conversation was it was in some ways a very pivotal moment in my own career, because it made me step back and reevaluate where I was receiving information from, and the filters with which I passed that information through.
Because I said, you know, this, I mean, this was literally days after I had published that podcast, I had had the conversation with you, it happened pretty quickly. And I said, how can I have felt so strongly one day, three days ago, and today I feel completely and utterly different after, you know what I mean? And if I had actually met you in person before, you know, I'd heard some of the things that I had heard, I would have never even gone down that path.
I would have gone, Hey man, like I'm hearing something like, what's up with that? We would have talked about it. You would explain exactly what you would explain to me.
And I would have been up and gone, you know, man, some people are saying some things about this, but here's what I know is actually, you know, so it's like, it definitely changed the way I personally filtered information and, you know, kind of thought before I spoke, I guess you could say. So it was, you know, whether intentional or not, a very educational moment for me in my life.
Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's been great since then, right? We've taken those lessons, and we've applied them to other things now. And, you know, I think, honestly, like like it's made our relationship better, right?

I mean, so it's, I think that that's, I think it was a good thing.

I actually kind of forgot about it until you just kind of brought it up there.

So that's, but I forget what I did yesterday half the time.

So it works.

Well, I, you know, I probably reflect on things too much.

I try to not make the same mistake twice as much as possible.

Except I keep rooting for the bills. That's a mistake I'll probably make for the rest of my

life. But, you know, I try to not I try very hard not to do that.
That's just something that it

really bothers me personally, when I when I small little things that, you know, like things happen,

like big, major things that if you had taken a moment to think about you could have not made that mistake twice sure so I do tend to reflect on those things quite a bit but none of this is actually why we had I want to have you on the show other than I just enjoy conversating with you yeah um the last few years I guess since that moment has had I mean you're um you had some, created some new projects. You've changed the state that you live in.
You've just had some major changes. And I also think, you know, there's been this interesting movement in the industry, and maybe this is the best place to start, speaking specifically about the insurance industry, is that you have made you look marketing.
There's a video advertising, marketing, uh, community coursework. Um, I think you even do some consulting stuff.
You can, you can talk, we'll talk about all that as we go. Um, but, but you've, you're driving, you're one of the driving thought leaders and really practitioners around, um, uh, taking your message into the digital space and how to do that in a very strategic and tactical way that produces results not kind of the fluffy you know hey you should do a YouTube video kind of thing like like here's how you actually do it here's how it produces results very very boots on the ground tangible stuff yeah and and and you're one of the pioneers of that and at the same time you know I'm here here I here, I've been gone from the industry for nine months and I stepped back in and I'm hearing, you know, it was funny, like being gone nine months, for some reason I came back and I was like, you know, I'm going to come back and things are going to be so much different.
You know what I mean? Like, I don't know why I thought that that would be the case, but I was like, I'm sure I- You know, this is the insurance industry, right? Yeah, I know. I know.
But I just was, I come back in. I'm like, oh my God.
Like, what do you mean you're not doing that? Like, it's been nine months. Like, that feels like the right answer to me.
And there's, why, like, why? Why are we still questioning, like, automation, putting your message out into the marketplace, like having at least a digital component to your business. Why, you know, from where you sit, why are we even still having this should we debate? Not, you know, it feels like we should be into how or who helps us or where do we put it? Not, but we're still questioning should we? And that boggles my mind..
Yeah. And honestly, maybe we're seeing the same thing from a little bit different perspective.
I actually see it as improving, to be honest with you. I mean, I remember five years ago, the word automation was like this, it was this foreign concept.
And today it's this, now it's this really third rail buzzword that people don't even know what it means, but they get really excited about it. And so I think, I do think that there's growth in that arena.
I remember sitting in an event in San Antonio, it was one of our very first conferences. And, you know, we had 120 people in the room and the word automation came up and it was like people saw, you know, it was like Wizard of Oz, they see color for the very first time.
And now, you know, we have everybody that is automated, you know, the people who are automating a lot of things. Do I think the tide has completely shifted? No, I still think that, I think that it's, there's still a lot of work to be done on a lot of fronts, whether it's automation, whether it's marketing, but you also, I mean, and maybe this is one perspective out of many, but, you know, a lot of people that I talked to have been in the industry for a really long time.
They were in the industry building their agencies in the yellow page era, in the bus stop advertising era, in the newsletter era. And not that those eras are still all completely gone, but it is different, but they built their agency in a much different model and they grew relatively well.
they grew relatively fast in a different era. And now, you know, there's almost this need, well, I don't need to do that because it's, it's approached two places.
One, a place of fear of learning something. I don't want to go have to learn Spanish, but if you drop me off in the middle of Tijuana, I better pick it up pretty fast.
And, you know, there's this, this ignorance that I don't need to do this. And, you know, I didn't, I didn't have to build my agency this way.
Well, the time has shifted and times have shifted and communications changed more in the last five years than it did 50 years combined previously. And so I think there's still a lot of that.
I think a lot of people are just still content with, and honestly, I don't fault people for that. I mean, that's exactly where I want to get.
I want to get to a spot where I'm content too. And whether or not I ever get there is completely different.
But I think that I do, I do see positive shifts. Words that we use today weren't used years ago.
You know, today, the big word is, is data. Like that wasn't something that anybody thought about one year ago, two years ago, three years ago.
Now everybody thinks about it. Automation is the same way.
Marketing, I feel, is on that path as well. People know that they need to do something.
I think what they get lost is there's so much coming at them from different perspectives. There's so many shiny objects that you don't know where to begin.
And it's, it's, it's paralyzing and people would rather stay put, bury their heads in the sand than actually, you know, take a step in a certain direction. I see this a lot with, with, with people that I work with.
I mean, people who pay money, they still come in paralyzed and, you know, we've had to adjust some things, but I think, I do think it's getting better, not at the rate that you and I would want, but I do see it improving. So where do they begin? Because I agree with you.
I think in many ways, I think you've nailed the two things. It's, hey man, I'm making $300,000 in personal income.
My wife's got. You know, we have a house down in Florida.
I get to play golf. I do some work.
My kid's college is taken care of. Like why, what do I need to do? Like, what do I, why do I have to kill myself with this new thing? So I think that's part.
And God bless them. I think that's a great spot to be in.
And depending how long you want to ride that wave. Yeah.
You know, if you're, if you're only someone who wants to be in in the industry for another couple years and then you sell or whatever and yeah i'd be right there i mean honestly i'd be right there with you like let's go golfing even though i don't golf but um you know you could just rollerblade alongside them as they're i just rollerblade man i'll rollerblade with the drink cart man you know it's it's all good no i i think that that the majority of the industry is not there and that's not what they're doing, right? A lot of agency owners struggle. I mean, the majority of agency owners struggle.
Yeah. So, and so they have to, they have to start somewhere for me.
I think it's really easy to say, and it's just a mistake that I see a lot of people fall into a trap is they want to learn mechanisms. And they think they want to learn mechanisms.

They want to learn Facebook. They want to learn Google.
They want to learn email. They want to learn automation.
And I think all that stuff is very tangible, nice stuff, but it's really just the fruit of what's growing on the tree. And I think the tree has to be rooted in deeper things than that.
So for me, like someone who nerds out on this stuff, I, I spent some time figuring out tinkering, know what buttons to click, but really I spend my time trying to learn human behavior, psychology, persuasion, how to apply those things in what I write and what I say, not just in the marketing side, but the sales side and learning, okay, this is the mindset that people have. How do I overcome that? How do I, you know, with this mindset is going to come this series of objections.
Why do they think this? Why is it that they want what they have? How do they, how are they going to envision themselves with the result that we're trying to get them? And so I think when you learn things, I think this is applicable to any industry is learning just human psychology. and I know it sounds weird, but I think when you learn things, I think this is applicable to any industry is learning, uh, just human psychology.
And I know it sounds weird, but I think when you learn how people behave, then who care? I, you know, I had this conversation with somebody the other day. I said, you know, advertising was around before the internet.
It's hard to believe, but it was and marketing was around before the internet and they relied on different things and different tactics. When you learn, when you understand how, how people behave and why they make decisions.
And, you know, we're talking about the herd mentality, you know, how to, how to think about that, you know, from the whole pick, from the whole big picture, then screw the platforms, you know, tomorrow a new platform is going to come out. You can figure that out relatively easily.
But, you know, learning how people behave and learning how to put that into words or into sequences is going to be, I think, where you have more success. And so that's a bigger picture thing.
And most people don't want to devote themselves to learning that stuff. But really, it's the best thing that's going to help you, not just from an inbound, but from an outbound, from a sales standpoint, from how you just talk to people on your team standpoint.
I think that's really critical do you think that's one of the defining characteristics between um say i don't want to just say agency owners but just an insurance professional who has figured out how to put themselves in a in a place of relative comfort or sustainability versus uh an insurance professional who has not understanding human behavior that is? Well, yeah, I think that if you want to grow and you want to improve, I think that that's what you need to do. I mean, I think there's probably a lot of successful agency owners that probably have figured that out, right? As it pertains to the insurance vertical, you tell them a number of objections, they'll tell you exactly why that person's probably thinking that way and they'll know how to overcome it.
So I think that there's things that maybe that they inherently have developed without maybe even knowing that they've developed them. And I would say that that's probably what causes people to have success.
But I think it's how people in the industry, outside the industry, how anybody has success in communicating. And I think everybody has a different style.
My style is completely different than most people's style. And there's a lot of intentional, I would say there's 95 intentional thought into why I do things.
It just fits me as a human being. And it wouldn't be good for other people to replicate.
But I think that it's definitely a skill set that you have to, you have to learn and you have to develop and you have to, you have to do it with trial and error. Yeah.
You know, I've come back to my father-in-law a lot because I feel like I was blessed in many ways to have him as the person who taught me this industry, because one, he's very old school and how he goes about things, but he's also been incredibly successful. And if you were to ask him, I mean, he would have, there is no way that he has ever studied human behavior.
That being said, his ability to adapt a story or a pitch or a mechanism of the experience that he provides in his agency to someone based on the way that they respond to certain things like their human behavior is uncanny. And he just developed it by digging deeper into the business and wanting to understand that next layer, never actually reading about it, but just listening to people reacting and, you know, hearing no a bunch of times and figuring out how to get closer to yes.
And, you know, that I, I am concerned, and this, I'm very interested in your take on this. I'm concerned that we're losing that, that the, the rush towards marketing, we forget that you still have to sell.
And to me, the individuals that I see who seem to have the deepest understanding of human behavior, whether that's spending time actually in some sort of learning or literature or deep practice to learn it, or it has just come from trial and error over time and focusing on That, those people tend to be from a sales function because it's, you know, you either kill it or you don't eat, right? And I worry that the farther we remove ourselves from actual sales, from actually, that the majority, that we're going to start to lose that. I'm not going to say you it because I don't I don't think that's the case I'm saying just that natural tendency away from

sales in some regard and more of a reliance on advertising and marketing we could we could start

to lose that a little bit do you think there's anything to that oh for sure I see I mean I see

it in the insurance industry I see it in every industry you know I have the the privilege of

having my foot and other you know seeing observing from the outside in how other people in other

Thank you. in the insurance industry, I see it in every industry.
You know, I have the privilege of having my foot in other, you know,

seeing, observing from the outside in how other people in other niches and other verticals approach us.

And it's all the same thing, right?

We get caught up in the vanity metrics of now we've accomplished something, right?

I, you know, from a literal standpoint, I have an ad running

and it's getting a lot of views and it's getting a lot of impressions

and people are clicking over to it. And I'm even generating a lot of leads.
I got leads for a dollar. Great.
How much money are you making? I mean, that's really at the end of the day, what it should be about. Those things should help facilitate and do that.
And most people, they don't. Now, keep in mind, I also talked to a lot of people who will make a lot of money and do really well with the same thing.
And there's a chasm, this separation between those who understand that and those who are just in it for the vanity metrics, the people that are actually focused on revenue. We all think we are, but I think our actions dictate that we're not.
And I ask know, who generate, say leads, right? And I'll say, well, how many times do you, I see this a lot like in the mortgage. This is a good example.
I'll throw somebody else under the bus. In the mortgage vertical, mortgage lenders, I would say sometimes fall even below, they're a layer below on the totem pole of what I call laziness, you know, in financial services because they're not used to having to sell anything.

They get referrals from real estate agents and, you know,

they'll generate leads and they'll say, Oh, great. How many, you know,

how many applications have you taken? How many pre-approvals have you,

have you gotten? Well, I haven't gotten any. Okay.
Well, let's dive into that.

What's your followup process like? How many phone calls are you making?

Well, I make a call and I leave a message and you know, I have to leave a message maybe i'll shoot an email and so on great when's the next phone call well you know i'll call them then you know maybe the next day it's very like there's nothing systematic about it there's nothing there's nothing intensive about it there's nothing it's very it's very up in the air and kind of gray and you see that results and it's but we get so excited on well i've done this i've accomplished this but that's great and that's that's a nice vanity metric that you have but what are the actual the real results aren't the what you've accomplished on the ad or the lead but it's what you what you've deposited in your bank account and that's what sales does and sales is not just um you know me tricking you into you know buying something that's not what sales is that's actually the does. And sales is not just, you know, me tricking you into, you know, buying something.
That's not what sales is. That's actually the worst part of it.
That's the complete opposite of sales. Sales is a very long process of, you know, people going from a series of being completely unaware to aware to making a decision and believing that that decision is going to give them the result that's going to solve an internal problem in their lives.
And they're so bought in to that solution that it could be a $1 or it could be a million dollars. If they really feel like it's going to solve a real problem internally for them, then they're going to do whatever they can.
They're going to beg, borrow, steal, sell blood, perform tricks on the corner in order to get the result that is really going to solve an internal problem for them. And so I think there is a real separation there.
And I do think that the successful people understand that. They understand that it's not just about the vanity metrics, but it's about, you know, the actual results that those metrics are supposed to provide.
And insurance agents fall into the trap. They, you know, you can't go on my Facebook without seeing somebody posting about and bragging about that they got $1 leads or 50 cent leads.
It's great. Awesome.
Congratulations. Let's talk about, you know, the results on the backend, you know, what that actually means.
I mean, I tell people, people ask me all the time, well, Nick, what do you do with your ads? I tell people I'm lucky if I close 20% of them, 20%. And that's because out of a hundred, you know, 50 of them, uh, I can call them every single day and email them every single day until Jesus returns.
They're never going to pick the phone. They ghost me.
Uh, 30 of them lied and 20 of them become actual customers. And so, uh, you know, that's, that's the real reality that nobody wants to talk about, but it's, it is a separator.
Yeah. That's why the lead business is so hard.
Um, you know, I learned that I, you know, we learned that the hard way through trust and choice.com. You know, when I was doing that work, that was, I mean, you, you want to get, you want to get punched in the face every day.
It was that business because that was SEO based leads. So you're working really, really hard to get them.
They're not really of the volume, but your hope is that they're of higher quality, right? That's what you're hoping the trade-off is. Right.
The intent is going to trump all that, right? Yes. So then you listen to the phone calls that would happen.
They they're they're hostage negotiations oh my god

it was like it was almost like the and there were and i this is not an exaggeration in hundreds if not thousands of cases the phone because because we listened to a lot of the phone calls to try to figure out what we were doing wrong you know what i mean yeah um you likely weren't doing anything wrong't doing anything wrong. And, uh, you know, I, I, I'm not, I tell people, I don't believe I'm a very good salesperson.
I rant and I ramble. I say things on the phone I shouldn't say.
I give up too easily on it. I'm not very good.
So I always tell people, don't look at me as the example of sales. Like I'm not Grant Cardone here.
And, uh, but it's, it's weird when I analyze phone calls, either from people on our team or people that we work with and it's, they, they, they come to me, they go, Nick, I can't have any success with these. And we'll go, okay, well, let's, let's dive in.
Let's listen to the phone call. The phone call is, you know, I'm using mortgage again as example.
It's okay. What's your social security number? How much can you afford to pay right now? You don't have a down payment.
It's like, it's like, it's a ransom call. You know, you might as well put like the machine over the thing and be like, I have a million dollars.
You know, it's basically what it ought to be like. It's no, no difference.
Um, you know, there's no rapport. There's no relationship building.
Marketing is all about relationship building. That's all it is.
A funnel is nothing but a relationship builder. It's not this mystic, weird thing.
And it's not some scientific formula either. It's nothing.
It is, all it is, is I'm building relationship and building rapport. Whether I do that through a series of text messages, emails, phone calls, in-person visits, direct mail.
How am I building a relationship with this audience? And how do I get them to pay attention to me? How do I get them to turn their head, you know, to look at what I'm doing? And how do I actually solve a real internal problem? That's all marketing is. And I feel like we've made it this A, there's two sides of it.
We made it this mystical thing. Um, like it's the force.
And the other thing is we've made it like it's the scientific formula. Like I just, it's a calculator and that's neither are correct.
It's, it's just, how do I build a relationship with people? And if you use Facebook, if you use Google, if you use direct mail, if you telemarket, if you show up at community events and craft fairs and whatever, like that's, that's all it is. And that's all it should be.
It's setting expectations. And then when you talk to them, you're delivering on the expectations that you set.
And it's, it's just funny to me how many people try to make it so that the person doesn't want to buy insurance for them. Like, like they, they approach the call as like a series of, of like tumblers.
It's almost like, like Raider. It's almost like the last crusade where hair, where, where Indiana Jones has got to run through the different.
And they're just, it's like, we have this prize, which is the thing that you actually want, but we're going to make you run through this obstacle course of challenges in order to get there we're not going to take your hand we're not going to give you the the guidebook we're going to like just blindfold you and send you into a into a minefield and let's hope that those things yeah let's hope that those things don't chop your head off in the meantime right yeah if you make it to their side then congratulations now you got to pick the right right cup and if you fail then then you know no it's true it's um and that's why i think you know and i feel like that's a mistake that happens when you just focus so much on the on the mechanism instead of the the actual bigger picture and you know you focus on the mechanism you're you're bound to do this thing you get so caught up in chatbots you get so caught up in facebook ads so so caught up like just build relationships with people just yeah people have internal struggles and internal problems and that's why they buy things to solve internal problems and you know insurance is a wonderful thing to solve real internal problems if it's presented right and i feel like we just get lost in the and it's cool because it's cool to say i say, I get caught up in that stuff. It's cool to say, I have this thing.
I have this thing I have. It is cool.
You know, if it's, if it's a hobby, but I'm making money, that's all it is. It's just a hobby.
Exactly. So in, in your work in, in the, in the, the, uh, made you look marketing world side of your life.
Um, how do you start to break that down for people like when they join the join the group they they they bought in they're in there they want to be part of it they want to um start using video and everything to advertise and market their business and and drive new opportunities in and and they and you can tell immediately that that person is too caught up in, Hey, Nick's going to teach me YouTube ads and not in all the stuff that it goes into before. How do you start to break down those barriers? How do you start to change that mindset? Um, so that they don't, they're not just throwing stuff up there.
That's never actually going to produce any results for them. Yeah.

This is actually something that we had to address within the last couple months because there was a few things.

There was that aspect, right, of people who came in and had a certain mindset,

you know, already pre-programmed.

But then there was a lot of people who we were seeing coming in

that would struggle to take a first step and they got really excited. They, they, they, they saw the problem.
They understood how to solve the problem, but they didn't know how to take a first step. They got paralyzed.
And so one of the things that we started doing is we said, okay, we have to boil us down to the most simple, most simplest things. And how do we get momentum started in people? So what we started doing is I believe that the most important aspect of marketing as we know it, marketing is, is, is words.
It's words. It's what you say.
It's what people read. It's it's those words that have, that elicit emotional responses that trigger emotional responses in the brain.
They get them to want to either see that there's a problem or get so fired up about wanting to solve the problem. And so what we did is we said, okay, let's take this one step at a time.
And the very first thing we need to do, you sign up for our program. The first thing we're going to do is we need to hear your offer.
We need to understand your offer. We need to understand your pitch.
We need to understand, we need to boil that down. We have to perfect that.
You can have the greatest ad on any platform. It could be the most well-designed.
It could be the best expression of an ad. But if the words aren't good, then your results are going to be poor on the flip side you can have the ugliest looking maybe you know gritty ugly just whatever but if the words elicit the right responses in people then and that's why i always say you know just this is a design aspect that i've used just in my years of being in design is simple is always better simple clean there's nothing There's nothing wrong with white space because it's the words and the message and the offer that's going to be the most important thing.
And so the, the, where we have to always, well, we always have to put in the most amount of work with anybody is we need to polish the offer. We have to write the script.
I don't care how you film it. I don't care if you film it in an office with fluorescent light.
I mean, I kind of do, but an office with fluorescent lights and no microphone. We need to really make sure that the offer is right because it's going to be the offer that people hear or that they read that's going to make that, it's going to give them buy-in.
It's going to make them think that, okay, this is going to solve a problem. I have this problem.
I know I have this problem. I have this problem when it comes to protecting my family i have this problem when it comes to i'm this exposed whatever the case might be and we we we dial that in and in there we we take it's like that scene from episode four star wars it's you know luke is shooting with the little blasters and puts a blindfold down and finally he can he can deflect the blasters and he goes i finally did see Obi-Wan goes, great.
You've taken your first step in a much larger world. And we have to get the ball rolling in that way.
And if we can kind of get people to understand their offer, and it's different for every insurance agent, right? Your value proposition is another way of thinking about your offer. What is your real value proposition? How do you actually solve internal struggles with your ideal customer? It could be with technology.
It could be with ease of use. It could be with price.
It could be with experience. I don't care what it is.
You will have a, you have a very unique value proposition that is the core of your offer. And if we can figure that out and put that in the right structure, put that in the right framework, then you can have great results.
And that, and then putting, you know, talking into a camera or whatever is a lot different. You're a lot less intimidated when you really understand, really believe yourself in the offer that you're presenting and how it's going to change someone's life.
And so that's where we start. First base is all, not even for the batter's box is the offer.
The batter's box that we get lined up in is what are we going to say? Why are we saying it this way? Why are we saying, why are we using these words? Why are we structuring it this way? Why are we delivering this value upon this value upon this value? And when we understand that, then I don't care what you throw down, we're going to knock it out of the park. And so that's where we focus.
And I think that's where a lot of people get it wrong is their offer there and how it's communicated. It's an insurance financial services, it's weight.
It's a challenge because mainly you're dealing with people who don't think this way. They're not programmed this way.
And that's fine. No wrong there.
But, you know, it's very logical. It's very, it's very it's very uh systematic insurances and you know you buy this product to protect against this and really insurance should be the most emotion one of the most emotional buys that there is you should be i hear people all the time talk about it's hard to do this for insurance no insurance is a very charged, should be emotionally charged buying decision.
And if you can tap into that with your offer, with your words, you can really have something there. And that's not the sexy part, right? I mean, I'm assuming that's why most people don't do that naturally.
No, that's not the sexy part. That's not the sexy part.
The sexy part is, what is my lighting? What picture am I using? That's the sexy part. The gimmicks.
The smoke and mirrors. And there's not to say there's not a place for that.
But like most things in life, I feel like we minor on the majors and major on the minors. And successful advertisers in every vertical understand that it's not about the – I mean, Agora Pub understand, you know,

that it's not about the, I mean, I mean,

Agora publishing you know,

sells well over a billion dollars of product a year through newsletters,

long form newsletters. They're the, they're at the pinnacle of, you know,

in the copywriting world, everybody, you know, they're like the,

they're like the wizard in the wizard of Oz and you know,

they're not using Facebook ads. They're not using facebook ads they're not using youtube ads they're using newsletters who cares about the medium who cares about the sexy stuff you know let's let's let's boil it down to why people make buying decisions and understanding that i learned from don miller um i mean i happen to be in don miller's mastermind from story brand and you know, one of the things he always talks about is nobody walks in the direction of a cloud.
We always, even against our better judgment, walk in the direction of that which is made most clear to us. And people always make decisions that solve internal problems.
They don't make decisions. You and I don't make decisions, on things that just solve external problems.
You know, if I let my grass grow to my waist and I haven't mowed it, if it was a real external problem, I would have probably solved it a long time ago. I would have went and got a lawnmower and mowed my grass.
but I go out and buy the lawnmower because I'm tired of seeing that the way the neighbors look at me and how it makes me feel inside I feel embarrassed I feel like uh you know some some

schlep some lazy bum who can't even mow his yard. Then I go by the lawnmower, right? I'm solving an internal problem because I don't want to feel that way anymore.
And I think that that's something that if insurance agents, if anybody can grasp that concept, that when you're selling a product like insurance, a non-tangible product, people are buying it because they want it to solve internal struggles. They'll tell you price, and for a lot of people it is price, but why price? What is that cost savings going to do for them? How is that going to solve anything in their life? How is that going to make their life better? If you can go just a level deeper and ask why, why, why, why price? Why is saving money important? Why, why is, why do you want to have more time with your family? Why, if you can solve, if you can solve for that, then I feel like you can take most offers and you can make them really attractive to people.
And I think that's where a lot of people get lost because it's not sexy. People don't want to think about that stuff.
They just want to know what what words do i say what's the frame what's the copy and paste solution and um it's destructive honestly it's good it's good for training wheels it's good to to know you know how to put reps in but at the end of the day you're gonna have to figure that out for your audience yeah you know i I have I would like to think of myself as like a

empathetic person but I don't know that I actually am. Because I have these Machiavellian thoughts about some of this stuff after having done this and talked about it for so long.
You're either empathetic or you're a sociopath. Yeah.
Right? So, and you know, there's no right or wrong on that. Well, I just, you know, I mean, you've been doing this for a long time.
I've been doing it for a very long time too. I mean, I've been teaching the basic branding of the 100 insurance questions, the answer thing that I talk about or more than a decade.
And I think Mike Crowley is the first person that ever completed it. And didn't even do it in 100 days took him a couple months yeah you know you know he did it like or a couple extra months like he didn't do one every day and my point in saying that to you is like sometimes sometimes and this might sound terrible but like sometimes I I just I just think to myself, if you're really not, if Nick Ayers, a guy who has proven through both himself and multiple case studies, tens of case studies, and probably hundreds of other people that have done it that haven't been under your direct oversight oversight have shown that spending a little extra time on the words and coming up with the offer and just that time that you're not going to tweet out, you know, there's that time that no one's watching, just doing that work.
If that's the thing that you need to do to then have 10x the success down the road and you're still not willing to do it, I feel like I kind of feel like you deserve your struggles does it make sense like I just sometimes I get I feel like there's a lot of whining or opining well opining is probably a better term for the various things that have happened in the insurance industry and the insure techs that are coming on and, um, you know, all that kind of stuff yet. So few people are willing to do the work.
And then I see someone like you, or I see the success of, of Danny Kimball and what she's done at the O'Neill group in the last few years is her career has really come on. And she's shown that consistent branded social media content over and over and over again, you know, really drives growth in organization like it has in hers.
And, you know, and, and we just have the same case studies. Now, I know there's more people out there who aren't as, you know, who just don't talk about it as much.
So I'm not going to say that these are the only ones. Sure.
But versus the number of people who operate in our space, the fact that there are just so few new case studies each year boggles my mind well is it is it really does it really i mean think about it from this standpoint you you know you spend some time in the fitness niche is it really any different in the fitness niche between the people who get up and they do they they put in the extra mile to do selfies in the, in the mirror saying that they're at the gym, they're actually, you know, running the treadmill. They're actually doing crunches.
They're actually doing chin ups and, and, and putting in really hard work. You see that on every, in every spectrum, right? Whether it's physical or whether it's mental or, and I'm not even, I tell people I am not the, you know, there are lots of people that even I look to and I think, man, I wish,

no, it's, it's a developed skill, right? It's like seeing,

it's like having good biceps.

You think you got decent biceps until you see someone,

you see a crew of people with much larger biceps,

you're like thinking I need to put in more work, right? I need,

I need to figure this out more. And that comes with time and reps,

time and reps, time and reps.

So let me, let me reposition my argument.

Cause my argument is not the production of high quality results it's taking it's it's putting the shield down and blocking the first shot from the little thing like I feel like it surprises me how few people each year actually do the work of taking the first step onto the path they still stand on the the sidelines. That's the part.
And that's what, yeah. And the first step, you know, most people are sad.
Illustrated, you know, if you, if you go to a football game or a basketball game, there's, there's a lot more people in the grandstands than there are on the playing field. And that's just the way of life.
And so, um, the first step is always arts. And that's why I've, I've tried to address it even with people I work with.
Let's take the first two or three steps. And that's why with me, it's, you know, we're going to do a series of one-on-one calls, not in a group setting, which is going to be me and you.
And we're doing offer. Then we'll get to the sexy stuff later on, but we're, we're dialing this in.
Taking that first step is the hardest part. I, I have to now, with people that I work with, I have to take control of their mouse and I have to hit submit for them because it's, it's a paralyzing thing.
People don't, people prefer, it's that old saying, people prefer known hells versus unknown heavens, right? They know what they have if they just stay put and they are satisfied that they're paralyzed with that. We make those decisions in everything that we do, whether it's the restaurants we choose to go to eat at, our career choices, how we raise our kids.
We prefer what we're used to, even if it's to our own detriment. And we don't want to take a step out because who knows what that is.
We don't want to walk in the direction of the unknown or in the direction of a cloud. We'll always go in the direction of something that's clear, even if that means staying put where we're at.
And so, yeah, to your point, it's mind bog's mind boggling that not enough people see, I wish I'm like, man, I wish you would see this. I wish you would see this.
And I, you know, I know my mentors are thinking, man, Nick, I wish you would see this. And it's just, again, it comes with, it just comes with, with being involved with it and, and being, you know, again, if I had to be dropped off in the middle of Mexico, I don't speak Spanish, but I'm gonna learn it really fast if I want to survive.
Yeah. And that just comes with time and practice.
Yeah. I guess my, my hope is for those listening, and I don't mean this to be quite the indictment that I probably made it sound earlier, but I guess my, I hope again, skill level doesn't bother me.
Uh, natural inclination doesn't bother me. what I'm, I guess my hope hope again skill level doesn't bother me uh natural inclination doesn't bother me what I'm I guess my hope and my hope for for my particular work because I've always maybe tried to be more of a connector than an educator because I'm just I'm not not even in the same ballpark as you from copywriting from from at from all that kind of stuff even from offer building but you're not giving yourself enough credit but my point is that's not, I would never classify that as a level of expertise.
What I've always wanted my work to be is, how do I get the people who want to take the first step into the world that you know best to you? I don't need them to work with me. I want them to work with the person who's, and I just want the people listening to this know that if you haven't taken that first step, there are people who will connect you with individuals who will hold your hand to that place.
Like there is no thing that you could possibly want to do in this space that there isn't someone who will help you wade into that pool. and I guess that's the message that I want to get out to everyone who's listening to this is like

there is a range of things that you are the guy to take that person's hand and wade them down into the pool. And then for other things, there may be other people.
And I just, my hope has always been that more people take the first step. I don't, I don't care about your level of proficiency because like you said, that comes with time and practice and patience and effort and all that kind of stuff.
And that will happen. Um, what I want, what I would just love to see is more, more organizations and individuals within our industry starting to take that first step.
And I think, um, I think part of that comes from a general awareness of the fact that there are a lot of, a lot of really high quality professionals who know our space inside and out that can help them do that. And whatever it is, you know what I mean? If it's better utilizing your agency management system, there are people for that.
If there's internal organizational process, there's people for that. You know what I mean? If there's high level branding, there's people for that.
I mean, that there are, what I just don't like to see is the complete paralysis and stagnation where it's just like, I'm going to hold tight because, you know, you talk to somebody like, like, well, anyone who's, who's been interested or has sold an agency in the very near future. and they'll tell you that you were probably at peak EBITDA.

So you, you, you know, not, you were probably at peak EBITDA.

So you, you, you know, not that you, I'm not saying you should sell, but like allowing your valuation to slip today will only be multiplied as we go into the future. You know what I mean?

So you have to be very aware of that. And stagnation is, you're not holding up the fort.
Yeah, complacency is a real thing. I think, you know, it's just part of human nature, right? We're complacent.
And, you know, I think that there's, I think complacency can be a good thing, can be a bad thing. You know, if you're content, I think is another word for saying that, if you're content with certain things, certain aspects of your life, certain aspects of your business professionally,

I think, you know, again, I desire that. I personally desire to be in that place.

I don't know that I'll ever see myself as being someone who's not wanting to learn

certain things. But, you know, I think that complacency is just a part of that human condition

that you have to fight against. And so you have to jar it loose with certain things.
And

Thank you. certain things but you know i think that complacency is just a part of that human condition that uh you have to fight against and so you have to jar it loose with certain things and and that's where having a good offer comes in place right a good offer is going to or good good good um pinpointed uh copy or however you want to call it you know direct messaging can can jar that loose but and but no i think i think it's a human condition that's that's we see everywhere yeah like i i it's frustrating i i i totally hear your point it is frustrating though yeah because i there's just so much out there and i think a lot of people are taking it on and in general you know it goes back to your point earlier right about empathy right you you're more empathetic to people that you have an affinity with.
And maybe empathetic is the right word, but that frustration is an emotion that you feel or that anger even is an emotion that you feel. And you feel that because you're connected to this system, this community, these people, you know them personally, them professionally, and you, you desire for them to have more and want more.
Whereas if it was, you know, CPAs, you might not feel the same way. So, you know, it goes back to one of your original points.
Just kidding. Love all my accounting brothers and sisters.
I lived in that world for a while. Dude, I appreciate you so much.
This has been a great conversation. I want to be respectful of your time.
And I just think we've hit on a lot of stuff. And obviously, you're always welcome to come on.
You got to open an invitation to the show. So I want to close this out.
Just, you know, I didn't just have you on here for the conversation. I do think what you're doing with Made You Look is an incredibly important, um, facility within, within our industry and anyone that's interested.
I mean, I've recommended, uh, that you're, you're of course to a ton of people. I've spent time in it myself.
Um, I think, I think it's incredibly high quality, high value. And, um, anyone who, who is interested in what you're doing, if they apply themselves, the results are there.
So just let everyone listening home who may not be familiar, let them know where they can find out more and maybe even the quick pitch. Yeah, no.
So there's a few things that you can do if you wanna learn more about what we do. We have a 21 day onboarding process that I'll take you through one-on-one in a group setting.
We're going to craft your offer, perfect your offer. We're going to help you launch your first ad, and you're going to have me by your side in that 21 days to analyze your results and to tweak, prune, refine, optimize, scale, whatever we need to do.
So you're going to implement. You're not going to join our program anymore if you don't implement, and that's what we're after.
We're after people that are action takers that want the results and do that. You can find out more about what we do.
There's two areas. Number one, I would encourage everybody to subscribe to our YouTube channel, something we're promoting a lot now.
Go to Major Look Video Marketing or Major Look Marketing on YouTube. Subscribe.
I'm putting out a lot of free content. I'm releasing the Killing Geico series today.
So you can watch that, tactical tips, things, things that people would pay for. I'm giving it to you for free.
So subscribe to our YouTube channel, share that content with another insurance agency owner or community. And if you want to learn more about our program and what we have to offer, then go to our website, www.madeylookvideo.com.
Schedule an appointment, speak with our team. We'll see if it's a good fit for you.
Again, we're only interested in those who say that I want results and I'm prepared to take the action in order to get those results.

We intentionally are not the least expensive.

We don't believe that that's going to be valuable to you. And so,

but we do believe that if you're in the family,

we're going to do everything we can.

We're going to beg, borrow and steal and, and, and,

and do whatever we can to help you get the results that you're looking for.

So that's something you want to do. Look for you to join our website.

You're the man, dude. Appreciate the time.
Be good.

Thanks, man. You too.
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