Today on Stay Paid, Luke and Josh are joined by Keith Wilson, assistant vice president of Securitas Insurance Partners. Keith discusses how he’s grown his sphere through LinkedIn, organizing networking events, and consistently providing value to everyone he meets.

Key Points:

• Find a way to differentiate yourself from others in your field.
• Resist the urge to immediately message every new LinkedIn connection.
• When you’re networking with new people, don’t make your business the focal point of every interaction.

Q: Introduce yourself to our audience.

I went to Widener University. I had a degree in accounting, so I worked for a number of years at two different accounting firms. My one brother and my father are in insurance, so it was always the talk of the table. I met my current boss on LinkedIn. He talked through his vision of Securitas and the type of people that he was looking for. After about 4-5 months of conversation, I decided to take the leap of faith and work in insurance.

Q: Why did you believe you could make that jump?

My biggest pain point when I was in accounting was being the back-office guy and not having much dialogue with CEOs and CFOs—the decision makers. I’d always been good my whole life at connecting with people and finding common ground. I always found, when there was something I was passionate enough about, I’d be able to find commonalities with people and turn that into sales.

Q: When you got into the insurance business, how did you generate leads?

First and foremost, you want to look at the people you know, whether it’s family, friends, people you grew up with, or people you’ve come across in your career. I started out with my accounting network. And I’ve really tried to master my LinkedIn process, as far as connecting with people and trying to follow up with them.

Q: Once someone accepts your LinkedIn request, what do you do from there?

In the beginning, they would connect, and I would get an alert on my phone. And I might send them a message right away. I found that was not beneficial for me. I think it might have given people the impression that I had too much time on my hands. I’ve found that, if I connect with somebody at 11am, I might do better writing back to them at 6pm.

Q: Is there anything you could share with the audience that helped you build your business to where it is now?

Being a younger professional, it’s tough to differentiate yourself—especially in insurance. I wanted to figure out, how could I separate myself? How can I provide value to people who are in my network? And what I came up with was that there aren’t really many networking opportunities for young professionals. So, I thought to myself, “Why not put together a bunch of like-minded professionals who might enjoy having a few drinks after work?”

What routine do you have in your life that has driven success for you?

Every day, I try to be extremely disciplined in my approach and make sure that I’m spending my time wisely. Another thing is that I just give and give and don’t expect anything in return.

Knowing what you know now, what would you tell your younger self?

Be consistent and disciplined day to day. Don’t worry about the end results. Just continue to give and help others, and everything’s going to work out. There were so many times in my early career I was worried about not hitting my numbers. But, if you’re consistent in your approach and you’re always putting other people before yourself, it’s going to work out.

Action Items:

• Get your LinkedIn profiles up and ready to go. Every morning, get on there, see who your connections are connected with, and use that as a way to get in touch with 10 more people. Every evening, get back on and connect with 10 more people.
• Join the ReminderMedia Toolkit group on Facebook.

Connect with Keith:

LinkedIn