BRX Stories: Amy Otto
Stone Payton: Welcome back to Business RadioX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, tell the folks the Amy Otto story.
Lee Kantor: The Amy Otto story is really the genesis of Business RadioX. It’s the decision that helped take Business RadioX to a new level. For me, as we’ve told this story a million times, I’m an introvert. I do not like to do kind of that networking, that BNI type networking. And I was doing that and I was dreading it every week.
Lee Kantor: And so, I had opened up Business RadioX and I had started, conceptually, the idea of an Atlanta business radio show where I interviewed business people in the Atlanta area, and invited them on the show, and really working the process, that was really in its infancy at this point of interviewing people and moving the relationship to clients.
Lee Kantor: So, I had met Amy at one of these networking things. We became friendly and she loved networking, she was a people person. And she worked for Aflac and she was their salesperson. The way they go to market is they have to meet business owners, and the service doesn’t cost the business anything, and she just gets in front of their employees and then tries to sell them supplemental insurance. So, Aflac has a methodology, and their methodology was go to these networking meetings, meeting a lot of people, get appointments, and then work your way into the businesses. So, she was getting frustrated. She was getting some level of success, but she wasn’t getting as many people in relationships as she wanted.
Lee Kantor: So, I was begging her, please, Amy, be my co-host. You invite the guests. I’ll do every aspect of this thing. You just are the co-host. You just invite the guest. I will take care of every other aspect of this interview. I’ll be your co-host. I’ll handle all the production and distribution and all this stuff. You don’t have to do anything other than literally invite people on the show.
Lee Kantor: So, she didn’t want to do it. It took forever to convince her to do this. So, ultimately, she decided to give it a shot because she was so frustrated in the way that things were going for her. And so, she started going at the networking meetings, instead of saying, “Hey, I’m Amy with Aflac,” she would say, “Hey, I’m Amy, co-host of Atlanta Business Radio. Do you know anybody who would be an interesting guest?”
Lee Kantor: So, that shift, that reframing of who she was, and what she does, and who she’s looking for changed everything. Now, people weren’t kind of avoiding her at networking meetings. They were wanting to come up to her and they’re saying, “Hey, I know somebody who would be a good guest. Me. Why don’t you invite me on to guest?” Or, “Why do you have Bill on the show and you didn’t invite me?” All these people that she was having a difficult time getting in front of, all now wanted to kind of get on the show.
Lee Kantor: So, she was building all of the relationships at a speed that she wasn’t experiencing when she was doing it the more traditional way, and so she was just loving it. We were doing shows. There were three, four, five guests at a time on shows because they were so interested in coming on the show. It literally changed her whole business. People were coming up to her and they were just asking her to do shows just on certain niches. She did a City of Dunwoody show where she had the mayor of Dunwoody, she had all kinds of business leaders, all kinds of CEOs. All the people that she wanted to reach, she was now able to reach them, and it really just changed the whole trajectory of her business.
Lee Kantor: And the key was just simple. It was just invite people on the show, give them a good interview, get to know them. And then, she didn’t mention Aflac at all until after the fact. She was always investing in them, supporting and celebrating their work, and then betting that she would get to do business with them down the road and they’d be open to a conversation down the road, and it worked wonders for her.
Stone Payton: I don’t know if you remember this or not, Lee, but that is how I met you and got into your circle at Business RadioX. I was referred to Amy Otto to come and talk about my book, and of course, the rest is history and probably another two or three stories, but it was just such a marvelous experience. But when Amy did that, did she actually did turn some of those relationships into some pretty lucrative business, didn’t she?
Lee Kantor: Absolutely. It got her into the City of Dunwoody. We did a City of Dunwoody special. She met the mayor, city manager, another city person, they all came in the studio, it was only about them. She got an opportunity to let them know that, “Hey, I sell Aflac,” and they were open to it. She got in there and then she was able to leverage that and get more municipalities. It really took her business to a new level. It opened so many doors for her.
Lee Kantor: And she liked the whole experience better because she wasn’t trying to sell anybody anything. All she was doing is giving them an opportunity to tell their story. And that is such an easier way to meet someone and build a relationship when that’s kind of the foundation rather than trying to sell them something or pitch somebody. You’re not worried about that. All you’re doing is trying to help them and serve them. So, yeah, it was a game changer for her.
Lee Kantor: It was a game changer for me, too, because, because of that, there were so many people that were like, “How did Amy get a show? Can I have a show?” And I was able to get a lot of clients myself because of her opening the door and inviting these people in. And I didn’t have to do the thing I didn’t like, which was going to these networking meetings. So, it was a win-win-win all the way around. It showed how the business could work. It worked for the business and for the people that were using the service. And it brought you into the loop. And then, now, we’re trying to take this and leverage this and take this to people all over the place.
