S1:EP8 - Breaking Financial Taboos with Andrew Russell

In the Season 1 finale:

We speak to Andrew Russell, a mortgage adviser and protection specialist. They discuss the importance of income protection and how to have meaningful conversations about protection with clients. Andrew emphasises the need for financial education and transparency when talking about taboo topics like death and illness.

In #AskIPTF this week, we’ll answer some of your burning questions about choosing the right provider and Matt's tips on reaching the rental market.

And of course, we finish with Matt's Top Tips of the Week with Matt providing 4 top tips this week!

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Produced and edited by SEA Studios

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:10

Hello and welcome to let's Talk IP by the Income Protection Task Force, the podcast that shines a light on the often overlooked but vital insurance income protection. I'm your host, matthew Chapman, aka the Protection Coach, and welcome to the finale of season one. That's right, guys, it's episode eight of let's Talk IP. Welcome to the finale of season one. We hope you've enjoyed this inaugural season of the show. We've certainly had lots of fun making it. I've really enjoyed being the host of this podcast. But here's some great news for you. Do not fear, we will be back for season two in October 2024. Now, as always, and as a quick reminder, you can claim unstructured CPD points from listening to the show. So write down what you learn and make sure to claim those CPD points. As it's now July, believe it or not, where is the time going? Our focus has squarely now become on IPOR. The countdown has begun and, for those that don't know, ipor or Income Protection Action Week yes, we've now changed to Action, not Awareness is five webinars across the week of the 23rd of September. Now they're going to be jam-packed full of really brilliant content, loads of voices from across the industry and even more CPD points to bag If you really want to get your head around income protection and want to take action to get more of your clients protected. You don't want to miss out, yours truly. We'll be doing some of the advisor role plays, showing you how not to sell protection. It's going to be hilarious, so make sure you tune in, and there's so much more that you're going to enjoy that week. All the links to register the webinars are in today's episode description. So please, guys, go and get registered now. Right now, you're registered for iPore.

Speaker 1 1:51

What's coming up on today's show? In this week's interview, we're talking to Andrew Russell from Mortgage Quest. He's going to tell the story of how he became so confident in IP and hopefully you guys will be able to take some of that away with you. After that, we're going to be answering some of your burning questions in hashtag AskIPTF. This week we have questions on selecting the right income protection provider and top tips on getting the rental market protected. And, of course, we're going to finish up with my top tips of the week, and this week I'm covering off some really interesting stuff. We're going to look at the use of BDMs, how powerful that can be, the importance of prioritization and, finally, keeping it super simple, but before all that, let's get chatting to Andrew.

Speaker 1 2:36

Andrew Russell, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining me today. How's things? How are you doing? I'm all right, thank you. How are you? Yeah, really good, thank you. How are you? Yeah, really good, thank you. We were just talking off air and I'm sure we'll get into it in a minute as part of our conversation, but you've just been on holiday, you've been to Disneyland, so how was that? Was that good?

Speaker 2 2:52

Oh, it was lovely. It was lovely for the kids. I just I just ferried them around and made sure they they got from A to B and got home every day.

Speaker 1 3:03

Just like a taxi. Absolutely, Absolutely. But no, it was lovely. Thank you, no, I'm pleased to hear that. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for joining us today. Really appreciate you jumping on the show with us. So obviously, with let's Talk IP and this is actually believe it or not this is our last episode of season one, so you are a bit of a special guest that we've got here today. So what I'd like to do, if that's okay with you, Andrew, if that's okay with you, Andrew, if you just start by just explaining a little bit about yourself, your history in the industry and currently where you're working, if that would be okay.

Speaker 2 3:30

Yeah, sure. So I have been working in the industry for the best part of four years now. I've always been in similar kind of sales roles. I say sales I don't really see it as a selling thing, it's advising. But you know it's something I absolutely love. I'm so glad I got into the industry. It's amazing how kind of small the industry is and how you get to know who's who. You know the goods, the bads, the uglies. Yeah, I'm self-employed. I currently work with Mortgage Quest, a company called Mortgage Quest. I currently work with Mortgage Quest, a company called Mortgage Quest, so a lot of my incoming clients are off the back of referrals from mortgage advisors. Recently set up a new trading style called the Protection Guy, so we're now going full force into protection only, alongside with helping other mortgage advisors and brokers. So yeah, you can tell I'm loving it because I'm trying to build my little empire.

Speaker 1 4:27

So, yes, obviously I've seen you as the protection guy on social media. I've actually seen a couple of your posts and it's superb. I really love the way that you've got this dedicated channel. So, for all the listeners who are listening to the show today, where can they find you?

Speaker 2 4:52

What channels do you?

Speaker 1 4:53

use and what are the handles that you? Yeah, sure so. Currently website, wwwtheprotectionguycouk. Linkedin as well. You'll find me as Andrew Russell, and then I'm the protection guy on Instagram too. That's something we can come on to in a minute when we start talking in more detail, but before we get there, I tend to ask everyone on the show because there often is this kind of like why or like eureka moment in most advisors' career, where they understand about the importance of things like income and particularly income protection in terms of building that level of financial resilience Was there a eureka or why moment for you that got you really into income protection?

Speaker 2 5:24

Sure. Well, I think knowledge is power, right? I think one of the key things you could ever ever do and it would do yourself a real big favor in the industry is just listen, just pick up the phone, speak to your BDMs, get on the webinars. You know, work out what is what, what is going to work for your clients. You know. You can pinpoint each provider to each client. There's so many providers out there and the eureka moment for me was understanding it. Once you understand it and there's this kind of aura of it's complicated Well, no, it's not. You know anything's complicated if you don't know what you're doing. It's as simple as that. You know knowledge is power.

Speaker 1 6:10

Couldn't agree more Knowledge. Not only is knowledge power, but actually, like you, talk about simplification. I mean, let's be honest with you, who doesn't need an income? Right? I mean, that's as simple as it gets right. We get up every morning and we go chase income because we know we've got bills to pay and the bills don't stop even when we do so. Naturally it gets no more complicated than well. If everyone needs an income, surely we need to be protecting those very income sources. So I completely agree. That's absolutely brilliant and I guess, looking at what you've just said there and it's really interesting I think what you're saying, by the way, in terms of the tips that you're offering advisors, is phenomenal. But I also like to ask advisors that come onto the show you know, what kind of piece of advice would you give other advisors and what's the one thing you wish you knew previously that you now know today that you'd like to share with the advisors listening today?

Speaker 2 6:52

I again. I think the the best thing for me was the cliche two ears, one mouth. Listen to your clients, understand exactly what it is they do for a living, what is going on in their life, and really get to know them. You know you're going to have a laugh on the way. It's going to feel a bit uncomfortable the first few times you're doing it, because you're you're going to feel like you're invite invading in into their life, but you're not. What you're trying to do is give them the best possible advice. You know, and by doing that, people are going to talk about you. Um, that's what you want Ultimately. You want people to talk about you. You want people to go. Look at Andrew. He was brilliant. He listened to me, he understood me. Go see him, you know, and that's what I would say. Listen to your clients.

Speaker 1 7:34

Yeah, do you know what, andy? I think you're spot on, mate, and I think what there's a real danger. There's a couple of things that I'm taking away from. What you're saying is that you think about what a mortgage broker does. When they're asking clients details about their mortgage requirements and they're looking into, essentially, when they go through their bank statements and start analysing everything, it's like getting their inside leg measurement they're getting to know everything about the customer to determine if the customer is able to borrow and sustain themselves. I mean, interestingly, that then just all it does is signpost and highlight how important the income that they're using to get the mortgage is and how they need it to pay the mortgage. But what I mean is it's quite an invasive process when you're going to find out about someone's financial situation. But I think we shouldn't be afraid to ask the right questions, because I think if you ask the right questions and you prompt them in the right way I've been amazed at how open and honest and sincere customers are there's a danger if you don't do it wrong or you use kind of like scare tactics or stuff.

Speaker 1 8:23

Generally speaking, people tell you what they think you want to hear, whereas a good advisor like yourself, you know, asks the right questions, engages with the customer, gets to know them intimately.

Speaker 1 8:32

Because when you know someone intimately you know exactly how you can provide the right kind of solution and I often talk about in my coaching it'd be good to get your thoughts on this, but I often talk in my coaching around this idea that actually the most effective way to get a customer to see the value and protection isn't to try and talk about product or even solution necessarily. What it's about is aligning that need for protection to the client's very own goals and objectives, and that differs between every single client we speak to. Some have this need for looking after their children. That's kind of an innate thing within their DNA. Some are more interested in making sure that they can get the property and keep the property, and I think what we've got to do is understand. When you ask the right questions and the client gives you that information, it's very easy to build a recommendation that appeals to the customer because ultimately, being linked to what it is that they care about, I mean, do you find that in your conversations? Is that what you think?

Speaker 2 9:21

Yeah, I do, and I tend to do things a little bit differently to what the I guess the industry has always inherently done, which is talk about life insurance first. You know I would rather talk about statistics over that, because you know statistically you're going to need income protection over life insurance any day. You know, if you want to keep that house, you want to keep your lifestyle, you want to keep everything going as it is. If you're poorly, let's start where it's really going to hurt you, which is your back pocket. Yes, I absolutely take my clients through a bit of a journey. To be honest, it's always hard to pick out a scenario which is ever going to end in a good scenario, because we're not talking about good endings right. So it's trying to understand how your client needs to hear it. Taking them through certain scenarios what if this? What if that? How does this affect this? How would it affect that?

Speaker 2 10:09

You know how long could you keep going? You know you've got some employers are, I wouldn't say, incredibly generous, but they're generous. You know they give out good packages. They give out, you know, certain perks which go and stay with that job. You know what? What happens if you move from that job, um, and and these are the kind of probing questions I will tend to ask, um, you know to, to get a response, and, and some people are shocked in the fact they never knew something like this existed, other than if they get it through work already. But that's great if one side of of that couple or family gets it, but what about the other side?

Speaker 1 10:48

I completely agree. I think what you're really getting at there is that by asking the right questions, the client can give you the information that you're able to then educate them better, because I think the biggest thing that we're lacking in the uk is this level of financial education right, like no one's got any. It's like you said at the beginning knowledge is power, right, and I think when we give that level of knowledge back to the customers, we're able to then well, essentially empower them to make informed choices. I think this is a really interesting thing and I've seen this before as an advisor, both as an advisor and a coach is that a lot of advisors mistakenly assume that their knowledge is what gives them value. Ie, well, I know something the client doesn't, because I'm informed around financial matters or I've got a qualification, and so that's what gives me value, that's what gives me something that I can commercialize and charge the customer for.

Speaker 1 11:38

And my position is a bit different because I'm a bit like you. I kind of believe that it's not that at all. The power of an advisor and the value that the advisor offers is their ability to disseminate that into something that the client can actually understand and do something with to disseminate that into something that the client can actually understand and do something with. Ie, I'm going to break down these complex financial matters and put them in something that you can understand and from there you can make choices that we know are going to be in your best interest. But, as you're rightly saying, you can't do that without asking those probing questions and really kind of getting under the skin and under the bonnet of what your client's going through and what matters to them, and only then can you start to educate them. I mean, what are your thoughts on things like financial education?

Speaker 2 12:06

Oh, it's a must. You know, mortgage trusts are actually very proactive with getting out to schools. They've done it three or four times where they are going. You know it's going to be really hard to capture their attention right, but you know, with a few goes, with a few cracks of the whip, you know it's going to start sowing those seeds in in the younger generation's financial thoughts, because right now they don't have any. You know, year nine, year 10, year 11 and onwards they're probably financially astute if their parents have have led that on. But that's not always the case, you know. It's more so a case of we need to get out there. We need to start tackling the younger generation. They're the ones that are coming through. You know it's interesting, like I don't know if you watched the race to the or the battle to the 10, number 10, where actually this younger fella, you know, put his hand up and said look, you are. Your manifesto is for older people, not younger people. What's going on? You know we're the future, they're the guys we need to tackle.

Speaker 1 13:09

Yeah, and what's really interesting about what you're saying is, obviously, you know we've got knowledge as power, as being the one thing, but actually it's this whole idea that you know we've got to educate people, we've got to help them understand. And you said something a minute ago that really kind of resonated with me as an advisor and also as a coach, because when I'm talking to advisors, I kind of give this impression that actually it's not that clients don't want protection, it's just how we position it. The right way is what determines how likely the client is to accept the recommendations or see the value in it. And I think what really struck a chord with what you were saying there is this idea that when you position it correctly and you create that need or that demand properly, people are more likely to take it. And I think what needs to happen is advisors need to almost get out of their own way. Now we have this IPTF event like down in London, and it's the first inaugural IPTF event that we've done and we used it to kind of like talk about what the industry needs to do, how we can make positive change. That's brilliant, by the way. Oh, thank you, I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 14:02

And what was really interesting is, if you remember, iona Bain was talking and she made this comment about things like death, money and illness being the super taboo. And it's really funny when you think about the psychology of the British consumer and how those types of things are still seen very much as taboo. You know I talk about all the time. I've got friends that won't even say the word cancer. They say the big C because they feel like in some way it's going to create a problem for them if they say the word. And I think this is something that we've almost got to overcome first, above all else, in order to create the pathway for us to have these meaningful conversations. And I think advisors like you are doing it the right way, which is you're pivoting and you're showing that actually what it is it's more of an upside down triangle. So where the industry is tended to focus on life insurance first, let's not forget how someone even pays for their life insurance, and that's the same income that we're talking about being unprotected, right. So it's about getting back to basics and about being able to prioritize correctly.

Speaker 1 14:55

I think, as an advisor for me, andy, like the one thing that really changed my career and I've done a post about this which I think is going out in a couple of days is I talked about this idea that once I knew how to prioritize correctly and I broke my recommendations down into a prioritization model that felt more ethical, more sensible, more obvious and it also was likely to produce better outcomes.

Speaker 1 15:18

It gave me an entirely new sense of confidence going into meetings because I could explain to my customers why I prioritized the way I did and, of course, they naturally got more engaged because they were like well, that makes perfect sense to me, of course, absolutely like what we just talked about, where you can't pay for your life insurance premiums if you don't have an income coming in.

Speaker 1 15:33

So naturally your income protection has got me the number one priority and then you kind of work down the list and I think when advisors can do that and they've got a prioritization model such as the one that you've just about upside down pyramid, it's gonna make life easier for you because you know where to start and you know where to finish and all you do is go through a process of filling the gaps for the client as you go and of course, you're doing it in a logical, sensible way that is more likely to drive the right outcomes. Now, would you agree that things like death, illness, injury and money are like super taboos, and if so, like what? What do you think we can do to break down that barrier and start having these more meaningful conversations? I mean, how, how would you go about doing that?

Speaker 2 16:10

it's interesting because they are taboo. I would agree they are taboo and british people don't like talking about it. You know they don't like thinking about death, they don't like thinking about illness, they don't like thinking about what happens if this happened. You know they don't like thinking about misfortunate things happening. You've got to be black and white. It's our job to make sure they understand what we're here to do and what we can do. Because, actually, if you can position it In the right way, that if you die, x is going to happen, if you get ill, y is going to happen, the statistics are also there To back it up. Um, whether we look at, you know, the national statistics or whether we look at provider specific statistics, they're there, they're not lying, um, you know.

Speaker 2 16:57

So I think to be black and white with our clients is is the only way we can do it. Now the whole two ears, one mouth thing comes, comes into play, because you're going to understand how to address that with your client. You're going to have certain clients you can be very black and white with and there's going to be others that you may have to be a bit more grayscale because it may have already happened in their family, you know, and and you don't want to be bringing those, those nasty stories back up, you know. So, yeah, I, I think, trying to trying to work with your clients, but being as transparent as possible, you know, of likeliness or likelihoods I, I think is paramount and key, you know, to to being successful and to really driving home this. This happens, you know, on a daily basis I think.

Speaker 1 17:43

I think that's the thing is bridging that knowledge gap but, like you say, doing it the right way, where we're not turning people off, we're doing it a way that's emotionally, culturally sensitive, where we're able to kind of, in a sense, read the room, and I think in a sense that's an art form in itself, right, and it's a skill that advisors kind of need to develop over time. And there's a couple of things I've wrote down today from all the things we talked about. I've talked about prioritization, which I think is brilliant. I loved your tip around listening to BDMs, going on the webinars, learning ie. Knowledge is power. I completely agree with that because I think knowledge and an understanding of something gives you a heightened sense of confidence and security around what you're talking about. It's like anything no one particularly likes talking about things they don't understand or don't know about. So I think that's a great piece of advice. If you're an advisor out there listening and you're struggling, then obviously take on Andrew's advice Go and speak to BDMs, learn about the product, even speak to the.

Speaker 1 18:31

IPTF. The IPTF have put together loads of brilliant resources. We've got loads of content that we can share with you. Listen to this podcast. You'll learn loads just listening to the different episodes of the podcast and I think also what I really liked what you said is this idea of taking responsibility, because I talk about this a lot in my coaching about mindset, which is advisors don't fully recognize that often that they're the last line of defense for many people, as in they're probably the only person that's ever going to have this type of conversation with them, given the fact that it's such a super taboo.

Speaker 1 18:59

And I think advisors almost need to embrace this idea of being comfortable with being uncomfortable, because I think it's up to us. We have that responsibility, we need to do this because it's our job, in the same way that you know an uh, a triage nurse or an nhs nurse working in ane is going to have to do with some very uncomfortable situations. It's a bit like talk about midwives, for example. I talk about this all the time. It's not a job that I could comfortably do, because the idea of delivering a stillborn baby would absolutely destroy me. Yet that is part of their job and they know they have to do it. Well, it's the same kind of concept as us. Yes, we get those great moments when we get claims paid, and there's a positive side of it, but we do need to have those conversations, because if we don't have it, who's going to have it right? That's the whole point yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 19:42

And you know, if I'm sure not all advisors will have claims experience out there, but if you do, I mean they're perfect stories to to put to your clients and just say, look, I've got first-hand experience with this, I'm a, I'm a broker. You know, I'm an advisor, I'm a broker. I don't only put it in place, I look after it, I manage it. We, we will talk. You know every. You know however long, every year or so, but equally, I'm there when times get tough as well.

Speaker 1 20:11

Absolutely. I mean I said I said in the previous podcast episodes that if advisors haven't got claims, I think you tend to see a difference in advisors that have been through a claims process and those that haven't and there's no disrespect to those that haven't I mean, hopefully, fingers crossed you don't have to, because that means you've got a happy, healthy client. But you do tend to see a stark difference in the approach of advisors that have been through a claims process versus those that haven't. Only because when you get that phone call from the client, there's this very uncomfortable moment, you know, you get that, the cold sweat, the blood drains from your body and you start to panic over what you've done or not done. And I tell you that's the real focal point of all the work that you do as an advisor is that when it comes to that point of claim, you've got to know one, you did the right thing by the customer. Two, you set it up correctly. And, three, you've got that right response when the customer asks you.

Speaker 1 20:54

And I think that should be a driving force for lots of people, for those who haven't been through the claims process. Your point's absolutely right, andrew, which is you know, you need to bring these things to life. So, if you don't have any examples of claims that you can use with the customers, I've always talked about using the seven families videos and seven families examples because those are very, very, very powerful, very emotional stories that highlight the importance of protection and it was one of the best industry initiatives that I've seen. And I think for those advisors who are listening that don't have yet any client claims experiences or don't have anything they can call on in their own personal world, that's a fantastic resource to use to bring the need for protection and claims alive, because it's true stories and they're real examples of what people went through that situation. I mean, I'm assuming you've watched the seven families videos.

Speaker 2 21:38

Yeah, oh yeah. They are very good and they do bring stuff to life. You know it's there, it's it. You can't go wrong with it. You know it could. You could almost sell income protection off the back of one of those videos. You know, um, it's that easy absolutely now, obviously I'm.

Speaker 1 21:59

I've loved talking to you.

Speaker 1 22:00

You're clearly a very passionate, articulate advisor.

Speaker 1 22:03

I can clearly see just in the way that you do things that you're one of those people that believes in the importance of the role that you've got, and I love that because it's kind of what I talk to advisors about all the time.

Speaker 1 22:12

You know it's clear to see to me that you are someone who believes in the importance of their role and you take pride in it, and I think that's that's a message I'd really like to get out there to a lot more advisors listening that you need to be proud of what you do, because what you do is very positive and you make such a fundamental difference to people and it's great when I meet advisors like yourself, you've got that level of passion and enthusiasm around what they do. So if we're okay, we're going to kind of like wrap it up now, but if you could, what would be great is if you could just tell me what's, what's the one tip you'd like to advise us to take away from this session today. So so, all those listening, what's the one tip that you would give people up there so they can go away and have these more meaningful protection conversations, particularly around IP.

Speaker 2 22:48

So I would say, try and pull yourself, get yourself out of your comfort zone. Really learn about income protection, because there's a lot of life and kick life and kick life and kick going on. You know, decreasing level, increasing, that's fine if one of those things happens, but get yourself into bed with income protection fully, because that's the real game changer that's going to keep your, your clients, in their houses. That's going to keep the wheels in motion. You know it's. It's all well and good having life you need. They should call it death insurance really, because that's what it's covering, right? It's not's not covering your life. Critical illness, yes, it needs to be had, but actually let's weigh up. Can you have both? Can you afford both? Is it probably a case that you're going to have one rather than the other? Don't be afraid to go for income protection. First, we need to be reminding our clients that without their income they can't afford the policy, let alone the mortgage. Mind in our clients that without their income they can't afford the policy, let alone the mortgage.

Speaker 1 23:47

Get out of your comfort zone, go for it, love it. I love it. And I guess the key there is obviously follow Andy on the protection guy and remember you heard it here first, guys, you need to get outside your comfort zone, you need to learn about income protection. Income protection is a game changer, is what Andy said, and let's remind ourselves that nothing amazing ever happened inside a comfort zone. So if you want to make a difference, if you want to go and really be exceptional, you've got to stay outside your comfort zone. You've got to get to know income protection and then you'll start to see the real value and the benefit it can offer you and your customers. Andy, it's been an absolute pleasure. I'm very grateful for you coming on to this last episode of Series 1. Thank you very much for joining me today and I'm wishing you every success in the future. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 24:29

Thank you so much, andrew Russell from Mortgage Quest there. Just to mention, andrew actually mentioned to me offline that he's more than willing and open to help anyone any advisors out there who need help and support in how to have those IP conversations. So please feel free to drop him a message if you'd like to take him on that very kind offer. Thank you again, andrew. Right, it's the final Ask IPTF of season one. Who's on the line today? Assuming price is not an issue. What makes you choose a certain income protection provider? That's a really good question. Actually, there's no right or wrong answer to this question because it's down to preference, I guess preference from the advisor and preference from the customer as well. I think the key to this one is having a really good fact find and really getting to know your customer as well.

Speaker 1 25:13

I think the old KYC thing here is really pivotal because when you understand your customers properly and what matters to them and what's important to them, what they value the most, it's very easy to align them to a provider that has similar values or even provides products and services that better meet those needs of the client. So, for example, you might have a client who's got young children and they're really keen to look at things like children's critical illness. You might have a client who works in a job that might result in a fracture, so you might want to look at something like fracture cover. There's plenty of different value added options, different benefits, that might mean that one provider is far more suitable to another. I think it's important to understand how they deal with customers.

Speaker 1 25:50

So customer service for me, and claims, is really important. So I've been debating this recently around claim statistics and for me, one of the most important things is what that customer experience looks like at point of claim, and I think that should probably weigh heavily on advisors' minds when they're considering what providers to go for, because we all want to make sure that when the policy does get claimed on, it's going to do what it's supposed to do and the client's going to get a fairly good outcome and a good experience from that process. That was a great question there from Anthony Andreoli from LiveSearch. So who's on the line now?

Speaker 3 26:18

Hi, matt, it's Hannah McCallip. You already know that I do a lot of work around renters and accessing the rental market in my local town, but I just wanted to hear if you had any tips on other ways to best reach the rental market, other than going into estate agents, and other ways that you think we can get the renters engaged with this type of product.

Speaker 1 26:39

Wow, that's a complicated question and probably I don't have enough time to answer it fully, but no, really appreciate the question, hannah, great, great question. So, from my perspective, in an ideal world, I would like to see things like income protection signposted in short-haul tenancy agreements. Wouldn't that be wonderful where if someone's taking out a rental contract, it's naturally being signposted and the importance of protecting the income they're using to pay the rent? I think that's a pivotal thing that if we could get introduced and I appreciate it's not likely, but that would be a great way of getting people encouraged or incentivized to take out income protection. Apart from that, obviously you were talking about this idea that most people are going to rental agents and encouraging them to talk about signposting their customers to get income protection support.

Speaker 1 27:21

Well, naturally, when you do that, it's important to remember that there are three primary beneficiaries there. You've got the benefit of the client. So the actual tenant, because they're going to make sure they can pay their rent and their ongoing bills, which means they're fine, they don't default. They're going to be in a stronger financial position and more resilient. The landlord's going to keep getting their rents. That's a big tick in the box for them as well, which means they can then obviously pay their mortgage if they've got one on the property, and it also means that the estate agent is going to receive their cut as well, because whilst that tenant's still paying the rent, the estate agent's going to enjoy it. So it's about making sure you position it correctly.

Speaker 1 27:52

I think, on another way, a potential tip for you, hannah, is maybe look at getting involved in some of these WhatsApp chat groups or Facebook groups where you've got buy select landlord and maybe go on there and provide a bit of education to them around the importance of signposting and encouraging their tenants to think about protecting the income that they're using to pay the rent, because that's going to give those actual landlords a lot more financial security and a lot more mortgage security and hopefully, this idea that actually everyone in that process wins.

Speaker 1 28:17

It's kind of like this shared value model. It's a win-win-win process. So I think maybe get involved in some of these chat groups where you see those buy-to-let landlords grouping together and speaking to each other and maybe just offer them some insight and tips as to how they could potentially ring fence the income that they receive as rent and that they ultimately use to pay for their mortgages, so perhaps an alternative way of doing it. It's a very complex question. Hopefully I've done justice to it, but that would be my idea, thanks, Matt's top tips of the week right, so let's just summarize the top tips now.

Speaker 1 28:51

Bear in mind this is the last episode of the season, so I kind of want to make this hopefully fairly impactful for those of you listening. I've took a lot today in terms of my tips, from what andrew and I were talking about, and I think one thing I really want to cover off is this idea that you should listen and learn from your BDMs. Providers are an amazing resource of information, so you need to use that resource to its fullest potential. Now, obviously, you need to understand the product USPs and you need to understand how the product works, but there's also a lot of nuances out there. We even heard the question from Anthony earlier about well, so what else can you use to differentiate one provider to another? Well, the truth of it is there's often underwriting nuances that would mean one product is far more suitable for your customer than anything else. So Andrew mentioned he finds gaps, those little areas where a particular provider could help offer better cover or outcomes to specific clients. So use your BDMs as resources to help you understand that.

Speaker 1 29:42

Now, one tip I've always said to advisors I'm coaching is when you get a BDM to come out and see, you say listen, in all honesty, I'm not that interested in the specific USPs of your product, right? Because, quite frankly, they're much of a muchness. What you want from that BDM is help to understand how you can place more business. What specific things they do that no one else does is going to enable you to place business. So what specific type of client are you after? And get the BDM to help you, because that's going to really give you a positive matrix and framework of knowing where to place your business, and that means you can get more cover on risk, more clients protected and more revenue into the business. Now, often, believe it or not, bdms have amazing sales and coaching tips. Think about it they're going around the country meeting with loads of different advisors and often they pick up and absorb all these amazing sales tips, coaching skills. So, by all means, lean into them as well and say look, I really need help with this. How can I have better conversations? What can I say? How do I overcome this objection? And they'll usually have a great, great armor of resources that you can use.

Speaker 1 30:40

The second thing I wanted to talk about was this idea that knowledge is power. Now we at the IPTF, we've got a huge amount of resources and our new website's going live very, very soon, so please utilize it. Just access the information, ask for help, speak to your colleagues, access the IPTF resources, because you just need to do anything that's going to increase your knowledge of income protection and how it works. Because Andrew was saying the biggest difference for him was when he really understood the product. It became so much easier and initially when he started out he thought it was very complicated. But actually it isn't that complicated. And off the back of that there's a couple of things I wanted to say.

Speaker 1 31:14

One keep it super simple. Conceptually, just understand what income protection does. Keep it super simple. You can always get into the policy particulars and the specific conditions and things later on, but at the early stages just keep it super simple with you and the clients so you can get them bought in. Conceptually, if you just jump in straight into the technicalities, the client's going to feel like they're being sold to, it's going to be fairly overwhelming and they're just going to be like no, not interested. So initially just keep that concept really simple. Kiss, keep it super simple.

Speaker 1 31:44

The second thing is change your mindset around IP right, because it's not complicated. It's not complicated at all. It's essential and as soon as you change your mindset and you get out of your own way, because you may be the biggest barrier to your own IP sales without even realizing it, purely because you're assuming it's complicated or you don't understand it. So either get support, get information, learn about it, get help from someone else or just start thinking differently about it. And you also mentioned this idea of being comfortable with being uncomfortable right, and I think that's really important. Naturally, these are not pleasant subject matters, but they are important to discuss, because if you don't have that conversation with the customer, who will? Right? So you've got to see the importance of your role, take it seriously, be far more proud of what you do and the difference that you can make to people.

Speaker 1 32:28

And then, finally, my top tip and this is probably the most important one I'm going to tell you right now is this idea of prioritizing correctly. I did a post about this recently where I talked about how it was game changing for me to understand how to prioritize my recommendations properly, because it meant I could go into every conversation and move through the recommendations with confidence and clarity, going through the same process with every customer and simply asking right, this is number one priority. Do you have this, do you need this? Bang bang, bang, bang bang. Use that model that you build, that prioritization model, to educate customers around the importance of priorities which cover should come first, and why? Because that will give you confidence and make you seem far more knowledgeable. Now, naturally and this is wonderful to know income protection is going to feature at the top of everyone's list because it is pretty much, for most cases, the most important, the most essential cover anyone can have. But having that knowledge and being able to prioritize correctly will make such a difference to your conversations because you'll enter them with far more confidence and the clients will see that There'll be subtle changes to your tone of voice and the way you carry yourself and they'll be far more inclined to take your recommendations. Now, this, the idea of prioritization and all these other skills, is something that I'm going to be providing coaching, guidance on in the free course I'll be launching soon. So keep ears open for that one, look out for that. I'll be providing updates on my social feeds, but that course will be coming soon and it's completely free to access. And just like that, guys, season one has wrapped up Now, as mentioned at the top of the show, you can now register for Income Protection Action Week 2024.

Speaker 1 34:03

All the links to register are in the description of today's episode and if you've not done so already, please go and sign up right now. And finally, if you've not noticed yet, the IPTF has a swanky, funky new website and a brand refresh. So again, go and check that out, as well as the great resources over at iptfcouk. But for now, that is it, guys, for season one. Thank you so much for tuning in. I can't thank you enough for taking the time out of your day to listen to me talk, but hopefully see you guys in October. For season two, let's Talk. Ip is produced and edited by C Studios. Executive producers are Joe Miller, andrew Wibley and Vicky Churcher and, as always, I'm Matt Chapman. Empower yourself, empower your clients and let's talk IP.