Hey I know I told you I’d have the other 5 tips last week, but I couldn’t talk the rest of last week thanks to a cold I caught on a public bus…. Yup I know hand sanitizer (feel free to use some now as you listen to this)

Being an IA is similar to this its important to know that who you are surrounding yourself with and who is affecting you is not INFECTING YOU…. So on that note here is quick word from our sponsor that I recommend you surround yourself with if you like making money performing daily auto claims.

Podcast Sponsor - ACD

 

 

I was reflecting on a past FAILED career of mine and I thought about you and your pursuit of a career in adjusting. I believe you may find the lessons I learned useful for where you are at.

A few years back I created a COOL company. I had a great logo, killer website, sweet commercials, and man I was checking off the list of things I thought, I was “supposed to do.”

You may be asking, “What kind of business was it?” Basically, it was an app-based business for small local companies to offer additional customers through advertising. My team and I created the app and this “amazing concept” of how to bring the community together.

I had lots of great meetings with members of local communities, organizations, and even got to present at decent size conference.

I had a lot of interest in what we were doing, but I could never “close the deal.” After a year of “oh we need a new feature!” or “almost there”, and the always hopeful “just one more meeting” I had burned through $20,000 that I had invested personally into the business and all my relationships associated with that business.

But you know what? Everyone had thought what I was doing was GREAT, but no one wanted to PAY me for my time, effort or energy. I didn’t understand. We had a product that could…. Well that was cool! It would help someone, I was sure of it!

“How would it help me?” When a local business owner straight up asked this question…. It stumped me. Basically, “why should I pay you money?” is the question that business owners would ask that still haunt me to this day about our GREAT business solution.

I knew it would help them, I was sure of it, but I couldn’t explain why. To be honest I didn’t know why and you know what, I end up looking like a fool and broke as a bad joke.

Let’s imagine that I had learned “how it would help them” and “why they should pay money for my product/service.”

I’d sit down in meeting with local businesses (who were happy to have these meetings) and I’d share with them how we could get 20 new customers each month by advertising at another local business for only $20 a month.

“Mrs. Smith would 20 new customers be worth $20 a month to you?”

No business would turn down 20 NEW customers a month at a $1 a customer, but I was too busy talking about the features, partnerships, logos, and beautiful app I had created.

I wasn’t talking about THEM I was talking about ME.

As I reflected on this failure (as I have often in the two years since) I once again come back to that question. “Why did it fail?”

It failed because I didn’t know how I was going to help them, but I sure knew how they could help me. The bare bones about it is I did everything to make money for myself, but I didn’t do anything to make money for them.

And so it is within your chosen career field of independent adjusting, you know every reason someone should hire you, you’ve got all the features, State Farm Certification, you’ve got a Texas License, you’ve filled out an application, you are on Pilots roster, you’ve been to a lot of meeetings but too often you forget or you don’t even know how you can help them!

How are you going to help make a company MORE MONEY? Why are you any differ