Kevin Knebl on Sincere Conversations

Show Timeline: 

1:38 Kevin’s journey on the way to financial services
4:20 How a piano player with no business education achieved great success in sales
12:10 Building relationships offline before going online
15:35 Navigating conversations away from your services and toward learning about the other person
18:15 Opportunities for growing your network through LinkedIn
25:40 An example of how to start a mutually beneficial referral relationship online
28:55 Kevin’s high-tech high-touch marketing system
34:43 The most important thing to keep in mind regardless of the social network you’re using

Links:

Website:     https://kevinknebl.com/
Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/kevinknebl
Twitter:      https://twitter.com/kevinknebl
LinkedIn:   https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinknebl/

Want more?

Stephen Wershing: www.TheClientDrivenPractice.com/checklistblog
Julie Littlechild: www.absoluteengagement.com/blog

Episode Transcript:

Steve Wershing:
Welcome to Becoming Referable, the podcast that shows you how to become the kind of advisor people can’t stop talking about. I’m Steve Wershing. On this episode we talk with Kevin Knebl, a hippie in a suit who is desperately searching for another vowel for his last name. Kevin is an expert at leveraging social media to build relationships and attract more clients and referrals. Kevin entered the business world with no business experience, and with the good luck to be introduced to some excellent mentors, and became the top salesperson internationally for his company and then went on to become the top salesperson for three other companies in different industries, and that was before LinkedIn.

Once social media arrived, LinkedIn specifically, it meant he could establish and nurture those relationships like never before. But that’s a message many financial advisors miss and consequently get frustrated that their social media marketing campaigns fall flat. Our conversation covers all those basic principles and a lot more. And listen through to the end, when Kevin describes his high touch marketing system that can help you attract a consistent stream of people to talk to. Here now is our conversation with Kevin Knebl. Kevin Knebl, welcome to the Becoming Referable podcast. I’m so excited to have you here.

Kevin Knebl: 
Well, thank you Stephen, it’s an honor to be here.

Steve Wershing: 
Now for anybody who’s not heard of you, who obviously is not on LinkedIn, I’d like to be able to tell everybody a little bit about where you come from. Tell us about being a hippie in a suit and a little bit about your journey.

Julie Littlechild: 
Best opening line ever, Steve.

Steve Wershing: 
Right? Exactly. How’s that for the beginning of a podcast?

Kevin Knebl:
That is a great opening line. Years ago, what I used to do for a living when the earth was cold, was I used to be actually a professional piano player in New York City. Completely different line of work than what I do now, and I can assure you if you’re young and single and you can play Gershwin and Cole Porter and Billy Joel and Elton John, it’s a great gig. So back in those days, my hair was 18 inches long and I was totally a hippie, and through a chain of events I got into sales, and I eventually was blessed to become the top salesperson for four separate companies in four different industries, and that morphed into a speaking career.

So, obviously when I got into sales years and years ago, 25 years ago, I cut off my hair and I looked like a normal, clean cut person. But last summer, my kids … I have three children, one of each, my kids said to me last year … my kids said to me, “Hey, dad, we know that years ago when you used to be a piano player you had really long hair and we dare you to grow your hair back.” And I’m the kind of guy that you probably shouldn’t dare me to do something, because I’ll probably do it.

I figured I would take their dare for like 30, 60 maybe 90 days max. But at 90 days in, I said, “You know what? This is fun. Let’s keep going.” And now I’m probably coming up on almost a year. I’ve also grown a beard and a mustache, so if anybody looks at my social media platforms … I haven’t updated the picture on my website yet, but if you look at LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, you’ll see that my hair is quickly approaching my shoulders.

So I’ve called myself a hippie in a suit for years and years, but now I truly look like a hippie in a suit, because I walk on stage in a suit and a tie but I look like Jerry Garcia, so that’s my hippie in a suit and I’ve adopted a hashtag hippie in a suit. I initially thought that my audiences, which are primarily financial services audiences, I initially thought they would boo me off the stage and throw things at me, but actually just the opposite has happened. They have told me, “Kevin, it actually enhances kind of your message and what you talk about,”, and I’ve been told that I look like the love child of Mozart and Einstein. I’m just having a lot of fun with it, and that’s my story.

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