Be Credible So You Can Be Incredible: Establishing Yourself as an Authority with Mike Saunders

Voiceover: [00:00:00] Welcome to the FAST Podcast. Financial Advisor Strategy Talks with Lara Galloway, SVP of Financial Education at White Glove. Lara provides advisors with an opportunity to hear from some of the best minds in the business, follow along to learn quick tips to help you grow your business. From gaining new leads, to keeping current clients engaged and everything in between.

Now onto the show.  

Aric Johnson: Hello, and welcome to the FAST Podcast with your host Lara Galloway from White Glove. Lara, what's going on?

Lara Galloway: Hey Aric, I have a great podcast guest for you today, and I am so excited to talk about this topic because this is something I know our White Glove hosts who are doing our workshops are so excited to hear about.

This is all about positioning yourself as an authority, and this is something I know a lot of our hosts, when they're out there being a presenter at a workshop, they want to know how can I make sure people know that I'm a credible authority? I'm a credible expert. We're always [00:01:00] teaching them all the skills about how to be good presenters, we're teaching them skills about how to use great content, we're teaching them how to be good human connectors, and build that rapport and relationship.

And we have such a great tool today to help level up that expertise factor. And so, my guest today, Aric, is Mike Saunders, and I want to tell you all about Mike.

Mike is a speaker, a best-selling author of four books, and a successful business coach who holds an MBA in marketing. He's also an adjunct marketing professor at several universities and a member of the Forbes Coaches Council. He's interviewed hundreds of industry experts on his podcast and is always striving to learn from other thought leaders.

Mike is most passionate about seeing his family grow up with high spiritual values and providing them opportunities to succeed in life. I just love that man. That's so great. And he's heavily involved in his local church and is focused on teaching others the benefits of giving [00:02:00] and serving, and I am so happy to have you here.

Mike, you interviewed me on your podcast and I had so much fun. So, Mike, welcome to the FAST podcast.  

Mike Saunders: Thank you. Thank you so much, Lara. Happy to be here. And yeah, you noticed something that I kind of bake into how I do my interviews, which is I don't ask a question and wait for an answer.

We brainstorm and we mastermind. It's like a fireside chat and we go into really, really deep topics. So, I think that's what people want. They want to learn and take away writer downers and nuggets, in fact. So, here's something interesting when you just were making your introduction there, you were talking about being credible and a thought crossed my mind.

​​​You need to be credible so that you can be incredible.  

Lara Galloway: I love your sound bites. They're so good. I took so many notes when you interviewed me and I was like, that's a first. Hold just a second. Let me write this down. Right? But yeah. Be credible to be incredible. If you are credible, like when our workshop host are showing up, they [00:03:00] are expected to be an expert.

Those are table stakes. That's not a question. We should not have to question their authority. But sometimes people can do things to kind of undermine that authority and sometimes there are opportunities for them to maybe put that out in a better way that isn't too cringey or salesy. And your whole title being the authority coach, can you just talk to us a little bit about that and how you're using that with financial advisors?

Mike Saunders: Yeah, so I think everyone that unless you have the cure for some obscure disease, you know, you've got a competitor, you're not a one off. You've got many, many people that do what you do. So how do you stand out? And how do you get chosen to provide that service to your client? So as a financial professional, there are so many people that do what you do, and even people that do what you do that really shouldn't.

They'll start speaking about financial planning and it's like, oh, you do my taxes, just stick with that, but you need to stick in your lane and be relevant [00:04:00] and credible. And here's the thing, a lot of times when you hear about marketing, authority marketing, you got to scrap everything I'm doing and start to do this thing.

Nope. What I'm talking about here is becoming seen as that expert authority. And when you do that, all of the other marketing that you're currently doing works better. So, I think that it's so important to not stop doing what you're doing and start doing this, but when your name and your brand and your reputation are polished up, and you are coming into that initial meeting or that presentation or workshop, when people have that frame in their mind of okay, this person's legit.

Or maybe they see your name or on the PowerPoint behind you, and they're grabbing their phone and doing what we all do, which is, let me Google that person. If they see some pops of relevant, credible content online, they're like, okay, let me sit back and listen.  

Lara Galloway: So, you make a great point.

We absolutely do vet people and even [00:05:00] though I said if you're showing up in the front of the room, there is a psychological agreement that you're an expert because you're in the front and other people are sitting there along with the other attendees looking at you, right? So, there's that psychological agreement.

But we do the vetting and to your point, if I'm going out online to look up somebody, I'm going to find information about them. And I think what you just mentioned, to polish it up. So, there's stuff out there, we all leave a digital footprint. And as a financial advisor, if you've got a website, if you have a podcast, if you have written articles, if you're quoted in places, if you attend conferences and somebody tags you on LinkedIn, you're showing up.

So, what do you mean when you say, polishing it up? Talk to us a little bit about that and what sort of images out there on social media or out there in the world when people are vetting us online, should we be careful of when we're trying to establish that sort of authority presence?  

Mike Saunders: I would say that along the same lines of what we were just talking [00:06:00] about a second ago, you have competitors.

How do you stand out? Well, when someone Googles your name in your agency or company, what do they see? Well, you know that they're going to see your website in some social media and maybe some directories listed in whatever the case is.

But if that's all they see when they Googled your competitor that did the seminar down the road last weekend, or that their friend from Rotary or church or the gym referred them. But what can you do to elevate above that? And so, we want there to be authority positioning assets out there indexed to your name and your agency, your company, so that yes, of course your website and your social media will pop up, but also as they're scrolling down going, oh, wait a minute, what's that mentioned in the media? I'm going to check that out. And so it leaves that digital breadcrumb trail.

We like to call it your Google resume. And so now are they going to come to [00:07:00] you? You know, I must do anything that you say. Of course not, but at least they're going to potentially keep that meeting with you that they booked. Because you know what, haven't we all bought something, let's say on Amazon, and we looked at some reviews, but I've done this so many times, you buy something and it's kind of a bigger thing and then after you get the shipping confirmation, you go back and read more reviews to confirm in your own mind that you made a good choice.  

That's what your prospects are going to be doing. You got referred. Book that meeting with them. But I can cancel it. I can no-show it. What can be done to solidify that initial meeting so that you at least have the chance to impress.

Lara Galloway: I love what you just said there. Like a lot of us look at things online and we read reviews and we go, oh my God, this is amazing. And we buy it and then we find out it's shipping from China and will arrive a month later and then we really might start questioning things. And in that example, I'm being a little silly here, but at the same time, like you said, the point is we don't just look once, we may look again.

And [00:08:00] I want to hear more about these authority positioning assets. You mentioned, you started kind of listing them off, but if we could just call that out for our listeners today and be really specific about what you're talking about here.  

Mike Saunders: So, I spent about 12 years in the mortgage banking industry with JP Morgan Chase, and I worked with financial advisors.

I became the number one producer of home equity lines of credit in the nation two years in a row working with advisors, and it came. Funny story, but it came by chance. And then this advisor goes, hey, that was awesome. Can I send some clients? And I'm like, of course. And then one thing leads to the next.

I started going deeper and deeper because it was a wonderful product for an advisor to provide to their clients to preserve their AUM. Because I literally got a call one time from an advisor saying, hey, this guy wants to buy $190,000 RV and he wants to pull it out of his portfolio. Let's see if it would be in his best interest to get it through his home equity line to creates some tax advantages and all that.  

So that's my background there. And knowing how financial services [00:09:00] industry works, knowing how the mindset works.  

Well, what's your financial portfolio? So, its stocks, bonds, mutual funds, insurance, all those things, right? It's not just one thing.

I came up with about 7, 8, 9 years ago and registered a federal trademark called Authority Positioning Portfolio. So just like a financial portfolio is all your financial products or a web design portfolio is all your examples of websites you built. Your authority positioning portfolio is all the authority positioning assets that you have built for you or your building.  

Because building authority is your number one priority. It's not one and done. So, here's a quick pop quiz to continue answering your question. Hey, Lara, guess how long a Facebook ad campaign lasts?  

Lara Galloway: How long?  

Mike Saunders: As long as you keep paying Facebook, right? Poof. When you quit paying them, its gone.

Google, Instagram, whatever you run these ads and let's not even get into is it a good ad? Where does it go when they click? Does it go under [00:10:00] your webpage? But if you run that campaign and quit paying for it because maybe you ran it for a month. If it's gone, the benefits are gone and none of the ads leave a breadcrumb trail because they're just gone.

When you have authority positioning assets built for you, they're permanent. It's like a house, it's an asset.  

Lara Galloway: So, if you control it, you own it.  

I mean Facebook is a perfect example, or LinkedIn is a great example. If you build your website, that is your asset. You own that, but you don't own your business page on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, wherever you are.

Yes. It could get shut down for whatever reason. A lot of reasons. But how about this? Let's layer in another aspect, like research and methodology.

Mike Saunders: I want to answer your question first and say this, those assets become long term that you can always look to, always use, and they always lead people back in that breadcrumb trail to you.

What they could look like is, [00:11:00] oh, you were interviewed on this TV show, this podcast talking about a specific, relevant topic. I want to get into the buyer's journey. You don't just talk about here's my story I help clients achieve, that's like the first minute or two.

You want to go into teaching them something so that someone goes, I never thought of it that way. That's good. And then what's the next thing that they need to know? But those assets, if they're interviews on a podcast, let's say those are permanent, those are things you can use in your email, your website, your social media, and that Google resume.

So those are huge things to keep in mind because let's say you did one or 10 or a hundred of those, those are out there and it's casting that wide net. Well, when you think about the methodology of, like what I was saying about when people see you as that credible expert, so you can become incredible and you're positioned in their mind, positioning from an academic standpoint is in the mind of the consumer.

What do they think? Is a [00:12:00] Mercedes-Benz top quality or low quality? Well, it's top quality because in the mind of the consumer, you need to realize that you might have a wonderful wealth building retirement. A neat checklist blueprint, great strategy, and if you put it on a two-page PDF and send it out.

Who cares? It's a pdf. Put it on your website. People realize it's just a post on a blog or you put it on LinkedIn. Nothing wrong with these things, you have to do them. People expect it. But you raise your credibility when that same content is on powerful platforms like podcasting or be mentioned in the media or book or whatever the case is.

Now you said the same words, but now it is positioned on platforms that people recognize, and they sit up and take notice.  

Lara Galloway: Yeah. Like the third party endorsement, right? It's an implied endorsement. If Forbes runs an article and said, picked up something that you said, or a q and a, or if you're a host on a podcast, or if you're a guest on a podcast, or you're getting a little [00:13:00] bit of airtime on a tv platform, some news station that has something that is relevant that you're able to speak as an expert on.

You're right, you get all the credibility, not just for what you're saying as an expert, but that extra lift from that other party that is featuring you, right?

Mike Saunders: It's like borrowed trust. You know, you are trustworthy. And then when you combine it with another trustworthy source, the combination is that much more.

It's one plus one equals 10. So, from a research standpoint, I always love tying things into methodology research. There is a Canadian philosopher, media theorist back in the sixties named Marshall McLuhan. I think I even remember when we talked about him, you're like, yes, I knew him. And it's so rare that people even know of the name.

But in his book, there's a funny story about the medium is the massage, but he intended to be the medium is the message. One of the takeaways is where your content is seen, it gives as much value as the actual content. So like I was saying about a PDF or website or LinkedIn, that's fine, you need the content out there.

But [00:14:00] if that content is seen on these credible platforms, now all of a sudden that people sit up and take notes and it's not just, because I said it's because that is documented research.  

Lara Galloway: It's so true, and I, I will just tell you, I'm laughing, kind of thinking about this, you know we were talking beforehand and you know that I used to have a podcast back in the day, and that podcast, I swear, I had over 300 episodes from my coaching and consulting business, and that podcast continues to generate referrals and people who want to hire me or interview me or whatever, and I don't do that work anymore.

I can't turn it off, you know, it's still out there.  

Mike Saunders: That's an evergreen asset. Just like what we were saying, you didn't run a quick ad here and there and it poof went away. That is something that is evergreen. So, a key takeaway for advisors thinking about using some of these authority positioning assets is don't say, Hey, next Thursday on April, the whatever, 2020. No, don't mention dates. Don't say it's a cold day today. [00:15:00] It's a hot day. You want it to be evergreen just to have good teaching content.  

It's been said, I heard it from Jeffrey Gitomer at a conference that I was at. He said, people like to buy but they don't like to be sold.

So, people want to be educated. You want to teach, you want to educate and be their advocate and explain the pros and the cons, and you want them to realize that, oh, that's a good idea, I never thought of it that way. And so, keep it evergreen so that what you just described can happen down the road.

And you use those assets in your marketing to attract people your way.

Lara Galloway: So, I love what you're saying there. We're talking a little bit about the different assets, the different avenues, or vehicles that we can use to get that extra lift with the authority. But now you've started talking a little bit about content and what is it that people need to hear from you as an expert?

The medium is the message, yes. But once we get to the medium, what message, what content do we need to hear from these financial advisors to help further expand their expertise and authority.  

Mike Saunders: Yep. And that gets into [00:16:00] the buyer's journey. And that's an academic term, that's a marketing term, but in academia it's the buyer's journey.

So, it's something where we go buy a car or whatever we are buying, we need to research this and understand that and realize that this size engine or this type of wealth plan. So, here's the thing, if you were to call up 10 of your best clients and go, hey, I need your opinion, could you give me some help?

When you're asking for help and you're asking their opinion, people want to do that. And don't send an email with a 19-question survey, call them up or take them to lunch or coffee. It deepens your relationship anyway. But ask questions to go, hey, before you chose me, you were probably with someone else.

What was it that made you come on board? What were some of your concerns? Because you must think about something I'm not selling or a financial advisor's not selling a pencil, you know, and they know what that is. You're talking about private, deep personal topics. Wealth, your money.

So, there are some [00:17:00] strong opinions and emotions that could be tied up in that. Find out from your current clients what some of those questions were, and that should go below the surface level that wanted to make sure you were trustworthy and credible. I was really worried about and I was confused from my current person that this was the way we were doing things.

But no, I didn't really get it. When you explained it this way, I was reticent about whatever product or service. So, when you can get that research and figure out, let's just say five or seven key pillar pieces of content that you can use as really epiphanies that are drawing people your way.

That then becomes the content you build out on these authoritative platforms, and you don't do an interview and talk about all of them all at once. Because when you confuse, you lose, you know, tip of the hat to building a story brand by Donald Miller. Wonderful book. You don't want to tell them all those things.

You want to keep it really zeroed in on that one point. Knowing that there's a few more that you found out from your research in the next interview or TV or whatever the case you're [00:18:00] doing, you're going to teach on the next one next time. So those content pieces come from your actual clients.

Lara Galloway: Okay. I love that. And one of the things I used to coach my clients to do all the time, Mike, was when they were looking for testimonials to go back through their email and look at what clients had sent them questions about what they had helped them with, what was a major problem they solved. I said, just go harvest your email.

Go look and see, there's some gems in there. What are you most often asked by your clients? But I just want to say what you just described. And I know you sent me your book, which I would love people when we're wrapping up here, I want you to make sure that people learn how they can tap into some of the stuff that you can create for them.

But you sent it to me, and it was wonderful. You have all these beautiful questions to help an advisor think through what are some things that I do that are valuable to my clients that others don't do? What helps distinguish me and to kind of get in that mindset because it's hard to do it for yourself.

It's very hard. [00:19:00] What am I an expert in that nobody else is, right? And so, it does help to have a coach, to have someone who can guide you through that.  

But while they're asking these questions, that is a great way to get some testimonials too. So don't miss out on that little nugget.  

Mike Saunders: Well, okay, so now let's go one step deeper on that and use some technology and kill two birds or three birds with one stone.

Let's deepen a relationship and reach out to a handful of 101. Like maybe you text a client or call them or email them and go, hey, Lara would love to get your opinion on something and I'm working on a research project. Can I get your help? Would you be free for about a 20-minute Zoom? Just need to run some questions by you.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Set it up and boom, now you're on Zoom. So you ask the permission to record it, and you just go, hey, here's the deal, and run through those. And then maybe, possibly you even go, hey, also, could I just maybe ask would it be okay if I use some of your responses there as a testimony?

We're doing this with video, so now you're connecting with them as a [00:20:00] relationship building exercise. You're getting their opinion on what the buyer's journey was for them. Maybe pulling out some nuggets. Maybe you're getting a testimonial right then and there, so that you can then clip and send it to a video person because you don't know how to do it.

You shouldn't know how to do it. Send it to someone and say, chop out minute 14 to 19 and send me just that piece because that's a great video testimonial. And then you can send it up to your transcription service of choice whoever you use, and transcribe the whole thing. And then now you've got all these buyer's journey nuggets, testimonials.

And all you did was reconnect with the client and go, that was awesome. Thank you so much. Have a great day. And they're like, they hear me.  

Lara Galloway: Okay, you guys taking notes, that was an amazing workflow, right? We want you to be efficient. We want to help you do this. Sometimes I think one of the biggest hurdles that we deal with the advisors we work with, Mike, is that they know they need to be marketing and that whole word, it can just be a dirty word sometimes, but there are workflows like what you just [00:21:00] described, that add up and save time.

So much like you just killed three birds with several stones or multiple birds with one stone. And I love that. And you're absolutely right, I'm a big fan of reduce, reuse, recycle. So, what you just said, that Zoom interview, that client engagement connection, right now you've got a transcript, awesome.

That can be the basis of a white paper or an article, or a post of some sort that you start doing. Why not take that, cut it out, put some posts on social media, find some good quotes and memes in there that you can use. Use the testimonial in multiple ways on the site. Maybe come up with a case study, talk about that person anonymously, right?

And just say if required and talk a little bit about the journey that they went through with you and the problems that you solved together. There are so many ways to mine that. And really it took about 20 minutes of your time and then you pass it off to a support staff to make it magnified.

Mike Saunders: I mean, it's all about being efficient. And if you can do [00:22:00] one thing and get multiple things from that, and maybe you have to pay an admin person or an outsourcer to clip this or create that, good. You get the mind share and you get the content out and send it to your people to go, poof. I did that one thing, and it's very similar to what I do with clients, is I say, okay, let's figure out that buyer's journey.

Let's come up with those three to six key points. And I could tell you, a 12-step module of master of mine learned. Forget about it. Nobody's going to do that. But you know what they can do? I can bring them on my show, interview them, and create a vibrant authority positioning portfolio and hand it to them and go.

It took you an hour of your time in three different, you know, 20 minutes here, 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there. And you talked about what you didn't have to prep because you know what you know, but we zeroed it in rather than being all over the place. We said, hey, on this first interview let's talk about sequence of returns.

The second one, let's talk about how you know the myths and misconceptions about annuities. Because people could hear annuities and life insurance and [00:23:00] they've got feelings one way or the other, but if we can really zero it in, now you've got really great content to use. And if I do it for you, I hand you all of this promotion to go copy, paste, send.

Now you're educating your target audience with relevant content where they go, oh my word, you are on Spotify? Because they know the big names are on Spotify and that's amazing. Or Pandora or Audible. So, all of this kind of weaves in together, right. And you're able now to use it forever because it's an asset and you're building your authority positioning portfolio.

Lara Galloway: I love it. And you know, you've said so many important things there, and I want to just for our listeners, I want you guys to know one of the terms you hit on is really an important one for us, and you've said done for you.

And that's part of our tagline here at White Glove. If you are out there trying to be a masterful marketer and to position yourself as an authority and to send out press releases and podcasts like if you're doing all that stuff [00:24:00] yourself, chances are you're really not shaking your money maker as an advisor and meeting with clients and doing what you can do best.

That's your job, that's your expertise, but I love what you do, Mike. You've got such an amazing system. You've shared it with me so that I could learn before we talked here on the podcast about how you could help other folks in our world, and I think it's just amazing. You have such a fine-tuned system.

This is what you do all day. You create authority, you elevate authority, you create a portfolio of assets for these guys, so they don't have to do it for themselves. And it's not easy, as I said, to do it for yourself. So, I love what you just said there because that done for you piece. You should be paying for these things’ guys.

You should pay for stuff that is not your authority, your expertise. Let another person do that for you.  

Mike Saunders: But you feel good about it when it's a long-term asset, not just some poof campaign that went away and you're like, I guess I got nothing off that. When you start and here's something else.

No matter what level or how many years you've been in the business, [00:25:00] you can have a little bit of imposter syndrome. Your confidence can waiver from time to time. But I will tell you that a residual benefit of what we've been talking about is when you start hearing back from your clients and family and friends going, oh, my word.

You sent that podcast interview out, that was amazing. Good job, man. That was amazing. Hey, by the way, it reminds me we need to talk about, your confidence will grow when you start seeing this stuff handed to you and you just simply go post, send, add and now people are giving you this response back.

I had this one advisor that sent me a screenshot when he put it up on his social media. He had like 76, you know, thumbs up and 120 comments or whatever big numbers. So, you will enjoy hearing back that feedback. It bolsters your confidence. And it also does something else.

We could talk for about nine and a half hours on the topic of referrals. Well, how do you get referral? And I've interviewed Bill Gates and he's a friend and so I know that he's the referral master, but guess what, sometimes people feel a [00:26:00] little bit concerned about asking for referrals.

Lara Galloway: How do you do it the right way?

Mike Saunders: So I like to use this example. I'm a big eighties music nut from pop to metal to anything eighties. I can hear like two bars of the song and know it right off and have fun having a little contest with people. But do you remember the song from Bonnie Rate?

Let's give them something to talk about.  

Lara Galloway: Yeah. I do.

Mike Saunders: So now we got it in our head and for the rest of the day, that's going to be popping through, but it's going to pop. Thanks. Yeah, you're welcome. So here is the deal. You would probably ask on that Zoom, hey, would you keep me in mind to introduce me to some of your friends or family, for referrals?

Oh, of course I will. They intend to. Your clients intend to, but then they don't because they're busy. They don't know what to say and I don't know. But when you are then using this authority positioning assets and sending it out to strategic alliances prospects, but your clients, that interview gives them something so now it's so easy to go, hey, I was just really honored to be interviewed on this podcast talking about whatever the topic was, thought you might like to take a [00:27:00] listen. Let me know what you think. Feel free to forward it to a friend or two that you think might benefit from it. Not your entire contact book.

Not millions because now that's just too much, but a friend or two, and now it becomes so easy to go, hey Betty, hey Lara, my financial person just was interviewed on this podcast. I just listened. It was good. Check it out. And then you ought to give him a call if you need anything.

So, it's the humble brag, and it's the easy way to ask for referrals by giving them something to talk about.  

Lara Galloway: I love it. Can you give us, before we go, I just would love to put this in context again, at White Glove, we are doing lead generation workshops, like seminars and webinars for people, and then we're doing campaigns after that are all about conversion and nurturing and engaging.

And even if advisors don't do workshops with us, even if public speaking is not their gig, we still like to nurture and engage with our drip program, [00:28:00] social media, email campaigns to all of their database leads, prospects, clients, whatever they have. So, can you talk a little bit about what you can do? Like just give us a real good quick case study of how someone who is a client of ours would be able to benefit from using some of these authority positioning assets, or an authority portfolio.  

Mike Saunders: Yep. Think about the buyer's journey. Think about touchpoints. So, when they come to a live workshop or webinar, there's certain touchpoints you want to be positioned as, but then when they register for that event, you want to get them to show up, right?

Because they could click register, put their name in email, and still blow it off. You want to get them to show up. So, there's opportunities from that touchpoint to get them to show up during the event live or virtual, you want to get them from that event to your office, whether it's Zoom or in person.

So, there's these touch points. So how do you nurture them along? Well, you could send emails [00:29:00] and text messages and all of that, and that's necessary. But what if you use some of these authority positioning assets to introduce yourself, to get them to show up, to get them to come to your office? So, here's a great example.

I do a done for you package of three interviews where we focused on three relevant topics. And the first one focuses on a lot of what's your story. What's your background? How do you serve your clients? What's your competitive advantage? And things like that. And then, what is the first way that you tend to work with your clients?

Well, in the first step, that first touch point of, hey, thank you so much for registering for our upcoming event. Maybe to get them to come to your event. Now, if it's a White Glove event, and maybe it's the first step is thank you for coming. I would like to offer you the opportunity to come into the office, but using that interview, hey, you know what?

I was just recently featured on this podcast talking about my approach to how we serve our clients. Thought you might like to take a listen. So that way different than give me all your money and come in. That is, hey, I was just recently interviewed. Check it out now. Just put a pin in that for two seconds [00:30:00] because there's a huge psychological turning of the tables that is happening there.

We're all told, grab a microphone in a video and do Facebook live, YouTube live, and all these videos, and that's necessary. We know that video is fine and good, but when people watch that video, they know it's Lara promoting. Lara, when you are interviewed on a podcast, and you are the subject matter expert and you're asked questions and you're saying, hey, that's a good point.

You know, a lot of people have a misconception about what they need to realize is now people are listening in, like the fly on the wall listening in to you being that expert. And so, it comes across so much better than someone could be going I'm just going to shoot a video and I'll send that into the marketing touch point.

But you lose out a little bit by being the subject matter expert. So, using your assets like interview one, two, and three. Now, if you strategically pick from your research in the buyer's journey, once someone kind of gets the feel for how we serve our clients holistically, [00:31:00] whatever approaches that way.

So maybe when the second email could be when you come into our office, I'd be happy to give you a copy of my book, or I would be happy to be giving you a copy of our white paper on blah, blah, blah. But you know what I was recently interviewing this podcast talking about the importance of take a listen real quick and hopefully that'll get some questions answered, and you come in and we'll really dive in and create a customized plan for you.

So maybe they come in and you create that rapport. Now in their mind, you're positioned as that expert. They come in and you really confirm that it's congruent. You're confident. You're not pushing. And then you leave them with, hey, I'm going to put together some recommendations.

We'll set up a time next week. Or maybe you book a meeting, right? So, before they leave you say, hey, let's get together next week. What works for you? And then the email goes out that afternoon to say, hey, thank you so much for coming in. It was [00:32:00] so wonderful meeting. Really the fact that you know what we were talking about, and I'm going to be preparing some of these recommendations for you from when we meet next Thursday, but I thought you'd like to listen to this other interview where I really went deep about that very topic. Check it out here. We'll talk to you soon. So now all of a sudden, you're using these authority positioning assets as authority positioning, as educating them and progressing them through the Buyer's journey, through the marketing touchpoint, so that you're getting them from the event to your office, from the discovery to the strategy session. And then it should just be a simple aspect of, hey, what do you think?

Does this look like a good plan?

Lara Galloway: I love it, and I can't speak highly enough about doing the podcasting. Most of my clients found me in my coaching business through my podcast, and literally they would call up and say, I feel like you're the voice in my head, I feel like you understand what I'm going through already [00:33:00] and we haven't even talked, and you don't even know that I have a relationship with you already.

And it's because of the kind of topics that you address that, I can tell you as a coach, they're a hundred percent universal. But to the person who was listening to my podcast, she felt like I was talking to her and you know, like you're saying the credibility and the leg up.

That hearing someone being interviewed on a podcast talking about something that, again, if you're interviewing them in your service that you do with the three different interviews. As an advisor, talk about those things that are the most universal, the things that everybody's worried about. What's keeping you up at night?

Are you worried you're going to have enough money to last? Do you know how to pass things down? The things you have to the people you love? Do you know how to do that with the least impact? Negative impact financially, the most positive impact? You know, talking about some of those universals to the end user.

Those are the things that matter. They're so specific, but they are universal. So, if you're addressing that in a podcast or one of the other assets that you're talking [00:34:00] about, you're already showing that credibility because you're demonstrating that you've helped other people with that exact thing before.

I just love that. That's great.

Mike Saunders: And you know, guess what? You can go research and find how to get out on podcast on your own. There's a lot of free services out there. Pod booker and radio guest list have at it. But then it's, to your point, like you were saying before, when are you going to research the markets?

When are you going to meet with your clients? So good gracious, yes, you can do a lot of this stuff on your own, but you're going to run yourself ragged trying to track down this and email the podcast host and maybe get booked and you're going to come different anyway.

Anyway, you're going to feel like you're spinning your wheels, so why not just go, I got it. Methodology makes sense. I really want to be positioned as this. Let's get her done and boom, it's done. And I think that right there when you look back at your income and divide it by the number of hours you put in, what's your hourly rate?

Well, it a whole lot more than 15, 20 bucks an hour. So you should be [00:35:00] having some assistant, an admin person do some of the things that right now you could literally write down what you did all day, every workday for a week or two and go, oof, maybe I didn't need to be the one but I think that's a huge aha that you just bring up, is being able to have it in your head, have it ready to go done for you, but then what are you going to do with it?

Lara Galloway: You got to get it out there and get people consuming it. I think that is a really great piece for all of our advisors who are doing workshops with us to use, to get people to pivot from being an attendee at your public workshop to going into that appointment with you. I think it's going to uplevel the credibility and then the follow-ups, all the times that it takes people are maybe not ready yet.

Maybe they are not now. And you keep dripping on them over time, sending them more of these assets that you've shown, where you've been interviewed, you've been featured sharing some of that thought. Leadership is amazing. So, Mike, [00:36:00] I feel like it's going to be hard to stop here because I could just talk to you all day about this, but I would love another thing.

I would love to ask two things. One, I want to ask you about your definition of success, and then I want to hear how people can reach you. So, if you're just wanting to share a golden nugget for our listeners today, do you have a personal or professional definition of success you can share with us?

Mike Saunders: You know, for me, I think that it is progressive achievement and steps toward a worthy goal, and the worthy goal needs to mean you may need to have some goals that draw you towards something. You need to, like Simon Sinek says, start with the why. You know, not just have a goal that is so lofty that you know you'll never get there.

Believe that goal, have that why, but it's the worthy progression of each and every day, each and every week in month, making sure that you've got that goal in mind. And I achieved a little bit closer to it because I did this. And so that's success because you know you're headed in the right direction.

Lara Galloway: Success isn't cars and toys [00:37:00] and money and whatever, because when that goal incorporates things personally and professionally and family and all of that, fitness and spiritual, and financial and all of those things, now, if you have each one of those buckets, you're making these small steps of progression.

And another little great book recommendation, Darren Hardy, the Compound Effect, if you could just be 1% better, you know, in each area, it doesn't need to be hundreds of percentages. Better by one. Compounded over time or you get to that goal. So, I think that worthy progression or that steady progression of a worthy goal is a huge, huge success tidbit.

I like that phrase. I'm going to steal it. That's good. And Mike, how can people find out more and get in touch with you?  

Mike Saunders: So, my main website as the Authority positioning coach is authoritypositioningcoach.com. And I think that's a great place to start, there's a really great seminar series that I put together.

It's all audio, it's all podcast episodes. It's five audio on authorizeyouragency.com. So, you can [00:38:00] go to authorizeyouragency.com. You can also see it on my website too, but that then would give you some of these things we're talking about some of the methodologies and how you can use authority positioning in your financial services agency.

So authorizedyouragency.com. You can get that for free. On my website, you can also check out some of my other content like books. I've got a book called Authorize Your Agency and you mentioned my book here, Authority Selling that's available on Amazon as well.  

Lara Galloway: Well, thank you for sharing that.

We'll also make it a part of our show notes on the website. Mike, it has been an absolute jam-packed 30 minutes or so, and I have enjoyed it intensely. Thank you so much for being my guest today.  

Mike Saunders: Thank you. Appreciate it, Lara.  

Aric Johnson: Mike, this has been fantastic. We could geek out all day with this stuff.

I do want to ask your opinion on something because working with advisors you, you spoke about kind of the humble approach and I really do want your opinion on this because coming from the authority standpoint, I've never thought of it that way. And you really opened my mind to a lot today when they're a guest [00:39:00] on a podcast, what we've done is told them, hey, it's great if you target in your clientele.

The ones this podcast would be most appropriate for, and send them an email saying, hey, I was a guest on this podcast. I'd love to get your feedback on how I did, and if there are any questions that they should have asked me or that you didn't hear an answer for? And I don't want that to take away their authority if they're asking for feedback, but it seems to open up some discussions.

If you have a good relationship with your client, we find a lot of times they want to help you out. Right? You've done so much to help them. They would love to help you out, and so they're, in our minds, they're more eager to say, oh, I'd love to give them some feedback on how we, how they did. Yep. What are your thoughts?

Mike Saunders: Well, you established your authority by being on the podcast in the first place. You continue to establish your authority by not being prideful and cocky about it, and you stimulate another great word, which is called engagement. So, when you ask that question from your clients and you go, hey, is there anything else in there that you would recommend for my upcoming interviews?

Using this [00:40:00] new initiative in my outreach this year. Well, I'm going to be on some more podcast episodes. What are some other things that you think that I should cover in upcoming episodes? Well, now you get that client actually thinking. And maybe they give you the feedback and then that gives you research to then put into your buyer's journey to do in your next interview.

So, you don't denigrate your authority positioning, you amplify it by getting engagement.  

Lara Galloway: That is fantastic. I love that. I want to add that in. We're going to do another episode just on engagement. That's all I got to say, that's perfect.  

Aric Johnson: Yeah, I think so too, Mike, thank you so much. I know you already gave your contact info.

Lara, here's the thing, you bring these guests on for a reason. This is part of your network. I know there's advisors out there that just don't feel like they're connected to a whole lot of folks and they could do that through you. So please give them your contact info as well.  

Lara Galloway: You can always reach us at whiteglove.com or email us at info@whiteglove.com.

Aric Johnson: Fantastic. Thank you both again, and of course our last thank you always goes to your listening audience. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to the FAST Podcast with Lara Galloway. [00:41:00] If you have not subscribed to the podcast yet, please click the subscribe now button below. This way, when Lara comes out with a new podcast, it'll show up directly on your listening device, and we humbly ask you to share this podcast, rate it and leave a review as this actually does help others find the show.

Again, thank you so much for listening today. For everyone at White Glove, this is Aric Johnson reminding you to live your best day every day. And we'll see you next time.  

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