Beyond The IMO™

Why do advisors reach $20 million or $25 million in production and stall? In this episode of Beyond The IMO, Justin Woodbury talks with Dr. John Terry, founder of Black Belt Leadership and a three-time martial arts Hall of Fame inductee, about the challenges of building a business beyond personal production.

John shares how lessons from martial arts apply to developing a team, training another advisor, and creating the systems and processes that allow an owner to step back from the day-to-day.

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Guests and companies featured on Beyond The IMO are selected based on relevance and value to independent advisors. Neither Justin nor Beyond The IMO receive compensation, referral fees, or incentives tied to who appears on the show.

At what point does growing your business actually stop benefiting you?

In this final episode of a three-part conversation with Phil Graham, Justin discusses an advisor producing $30 million annually in annuities, clearing more than $2 million with just two employees and very little overhead. Yet his IMO continued encouraging him to grow, hire more advisors, and increase production.

After doing the math, the advisor realized that growing to $250 million in production might not actually make him much more money. But his IMO certainly would.

Justin and Phil discuss the pressure advisors face to grow, the hidden costs of IMO incentives, and why understanding who truly benefits from your growth is so important before signing on the dotted line.

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Guests and companies featured on Beyond The IMO are selected based on relevance and value to independent advisors. Neither Justin nor Beyond The IMO receive compensation, referral fees, or incentives tied to who appears on the show.

Most advisors join an IMO because of the promise that they'll help them grow, build their brand, get in front of more clients, and become better business owners. But how do you put a monetary value on that?

In this episode, Justin sits down with Phil Graham to discuss how advisors can determine what the services their IMO provides are actually worth, what their IMO may be making from their production, and whether they're truly leveraging the value available to them.

The question isn't whether your IMO provides value. The question is whether the value you're getting matches what they're making from your production.

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Guests and companies featured on Beyond The IMO are selected based on relevance and value to independent advisors. Neither Justin nor Beyond The IMO receive compensation, referral fees, or incentives tied to who appears on the show.

Advisors spend hundreds of hours learning this industry and almost none learning who they should partner with.

There are courses, exams, continuing education, compliance training, and product training. But there's no course on how to choose an IMO, understand what they're making on your production, determine what you're actually paying for, or evaluate what that relationship is really worth.

In this episode, Justin sits down with Phil Graham to discuss how advisors can better evaluate their IMO relationships and make those decisions with their eyes wide open.

They also discuss Phil's IMO Value Audit™, a tool designed to put a dollar value on the services advisors actually use and provide a clearer picture of what their IMO relationship is really worth.

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Guests and companies featured on Beyond The IMO are selected based on relevance and value to independent advisors. Neither Justin nor Beyond The IMO receive compensation, referral fees, or incentives tied to who appears on the show.

Ever since Google introduced the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) in 2011, Justin has been obsessed with the art of showing up at the top of Google searches and getting Google reviews.

Today, showing up in search matters more than ever, and it's no longer just about Google. If advisors aren't showing up in Google and AI searches, they're throwing opportunity away.

In this episode, Justin sits down with Brian Thorpe to discuss one of the best ways advisors can improve their visibility: getting Google reviews from their clients. They talk about why reviews matter, how they impact search results, and why advisors should make them a consistent part of their marketing strategy.

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Guests and companies featured on Beyond The IMO are selected based on relevance and value to independent advisors. Neither Justin nor Beyond The IMO receive compensation, referral fees, or incentives tied to who appears on the show.

Frequency and consistency win the marketing game every single time. Justin Woodbury has spent 15 years helping financial advisors with their marketing and has seen those principles work across radio, TV, seminars, online leads, social media, and just about every other proven marketing strategy.

In this episode, Justin sits down with his cousin, Samuel Smith, an investor, West Point graduate, Army veteran, and content creator with more than 13,000 YouTube followers. Their conversation covers investing, marketing, and building an audience, but when Samuel talks about faithfulness and the biblical principles he learned growing up, Justin makes an interesting connection: being faithful is really about being frequent and consistent.

It's the same principle Justin has seen work in marketing for years, and in this conversation, he and Samuel explore how those principles apply not only to marketing and investing, but to faith and life as well.

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Guests and companies featured on Beyond The IMO are selected based on relevance and value to independent advisors. Neither Justin nor Beyond The IMO receive compensation, referral fees, or incentives tied to who appears on the show.

Relationships and transactions aren't the same thing, especially in the financial industry.

In this episode, Justin Woodbury sits down with Dale McGregor to discuss what it looks like to build a business around genuine relationships instead of simply closing the next sale. They explore why consistently investing in people, whether they're clients, prospects, or employees, creates stronger businesses, stronger cultures, and longer-lasting relationships.

Dale calls it "passionate compassion," a philosophy that's evident in the way he leads his team, serves his clients, and develops the next generation of advisors. It's a conversation about relationships, leadership, and why giving often produces the greatest returns.

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Guests and companies featured on Beyond The IMO are selected based on relevance and value to independent advisors. Neither Justin nor Beyond The IMO receive compensation, referral fees, or incentives tied to who appears on the show.

What if insurance carriers were completely transparent about the sustainability of their caps and participation rates, and wholesalers were equally transparent about the products they recommend?

Justin Woodbury sits down with Drew Schmalz and Jon Blomquist of The Annuity Edge to discuss subsidized cap rates, why some products look better than they really are, and the uncomfortable conversations advisors can end up having with clients as a result.

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Guests and companies featured on Beyond The IMO are selected based on relevance and value to independent advisors. Neither Justin nor Beyond The IMO receive compensation, referral fees, or incentives tied to who appears on the show.

We all get the same 1,440 minutes every day, yet so many advisors spend theirs on administrative work instead of sitting in front of clients.

In this episode, Justin Woodbury sits down with Breena Fein and Gabe Caldwell, the co-founders of HeyQuinn, to discuss how AI can automate emails, meetings, CRM updates, and countless other repetitive tasks, helping advisors buy back hours every week.

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Guests and companies featured on Beyond The IMO are selected based on relevance and value to independent advisors. Neither Justin nor Beyond The IMO receive compensation, referral fees, or incentives tied to who appears on the show.

In this episode of Beyond The IMO, Justin Woodbury sits down with Carl Richards to discuss a topic that impacts every advisor, entrepreneur, and professional at some point in their career: fear.

Carl's perspective on fear inspired Justin to make one of the biggest decisions of his professional life, leaving a leadership role at a marketing organization to build a business focused on supporting advisors and their clients. That experience led to a deeper realization that fear often shows up whenever we are faced with meaningful decisions, whether it's fear of failure, fear of success, fear of the unknown, or simply fear of taking the next step.

Rather than focusing on how to defeat fear, Carl shares a different approach: embracing it. Together, Justin and Carl explore why fear is often a sign that something important is on the other side of the decision and how learning to work with fear can lead to growth, clarity, and action.

They also discuss Carl's new book, Your Money: Reimagining Wealth in 101 Simple Sketches, as well as The Society of Advice, an organization-agnostic community where financial advisors gather to learn, share ideas, and become better professionals.

If you've been putting off a decision because of fear, this conversation may be exactly what you need to hear.

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Guests and companies featured on Beyond The IMO are selected based on relevance and value to independent advisors. Neither Justin nor Beyond The IMO receive compensation, referral fees, or incentives tied to who appears on the show.