Knowledge isn’t power. It’s the use we make of our knowledge that gives us the power to be smarter than others. MDRT gives us a platform of shared knowledge, but it’s what we do with the information when we get back to our businesses that makes us stand out from the rest. Top of the Table, this is what I did with the knowledge.

I’ve listened to many speakers who have had a profound influence on me or my business. And during this speech, I’d like to give them the credit.

1. Join a study group. After being recommended to join MDRT and following my first meeting, I was invited to join a study group. This group has challenged me in such a constructive way that has made me think about my business aspirations and my client contact in greater detail.

My belief is that every group needs a contrarian. In our case that’s Craig Palfrey. Craig has offered constructive criticism and challenged me in the group throughout the five years of our study time together. But especially through the COVID crisis, he’s encouraged us all to get better. This has led to increased productivity.

2. Get a business coach. By late 2019, I realized that I had nine financial coaches within our group, but I also needed a specific one-on-one business coach to help me with my strengths and weaknesses to make better strategic decisions for my company. My business coach, Lisa, asked me to create an imaginary board of people who have influenced my life and whom I respected and admired.

Images of these people were placed on a board to talk to when I had a dilemma. One woman taught me that hard work won’t kill you, but the stress of having no money might. One man taught to me to be different and memorable and to go for your dreams. I have pictures of my parents and my best friend.

And someone else told me you can go anywhere with hard work and adaptability. Be prepared to change with whatever life throws at you. You can be successful. Look and create your own board, and when you have a dilemma, go to talk to these people. During COVID, these people have helped me.

3. Copy key phrases. From the five conferences I’ve attended, I’ve adapted key phrases. Brian Heckert’s “add a zero” made me actively seek increased premiums. When clients said they had 1,000 pounds a month to spend, we asked them if they could stretch a little bit more, and this tip has paid my fees to MDRT every year.

4. Retire happy. That’s what we all want to do. But for people facing retirement, we copied Clay Gillespie’s phrase, “You retire once, and I help people retire every day.” I’ll then explain that I’ve helped retire over 440 people. I won’t say circumstances are unique. They share similar characteristics as the clients we’ve helped retire successfully and happily.

5. Make it relatable. During the early part of the COVID crisis, when the stock market took a dramatic nosedive, we adapted David Batchelor’s attitude in his conversations with clients. We let the clients know that while looking at statements was painful, they also needed to know that my money, my family’s money and my team’s money were all investing in similar or the same funds as they were. We were all in the same boat. We were all suffering.

6. Be persistent. It was Kane Davey who encouraged me to join the Million Dollar Round Table. Kane is one of the leading financial advisors in the U.K., and at the start of COVID, he shared his thoughts on making the financial experience as personal as possible. At the start of the crisis, he also advised us all to contact our clients every month. This reminded me of how Bruce Etherington always said, “See the people again and again and again.” We couldn’t see clients because of COVID, so we contacted our clients through Zoom, webinars, newsletters, podcasts, personal videos and personal WhatsApp messages. But we also contacted people we had seen but hadn’t done business with to make sure they were OK, and this converted three of those people into clients.

7. Give back. Stephen Kagawa motivated me to build client trust by putting people first, but he also recommended a charity. So, after hearing his speech, I became involved with a charity called Just Small Change, which we now run alongside our estate planning business. This led to a man contacting us about what we are doing for his in-laws in the estate planning business. And we explained how a third of the profits went to Just Small Change. He has subsequently become a really good client, as has his brother, his mother and his children, and he’s invested over 2 million pounds with us in the last six months. Giving something back to society has led to good business for us.

8. Get a seating plan. Jim Collins’s book “Good to Great” talks about putting people in the right seats. I try to use the U.K.’s largest research agency rather than employ an army of researchers. The team I have at work are all using their optimum skill sets as well, which means I get to do what I enjoy and am good at: focusing on being with the clients.

9. Friction-free. The founder of Ringo talked about making client experiences friction-free. This forced us to look at the whole of our process from initial contact to the final signing to make sure our interactions and paperwork with the clients were effective and efficient. So, we make the client journey friction-free not only for them but also for us.

10. Keep it simple. The above came from Stephen Harvill’s “three clicks to buy.” Stephen taught us to keep it simple and make it easy for the clients. How easy is it for us to do business on Amazon: three clicks to buy. We have to adopt a similar approach ― not too much back and forth, accurate reporting analysis and easy-to-decipher advice.

11. Become a storyteller. In his presentation, Matthew Luhn talked to us about the power of stories. Research by Harvard Business Review has proved that telling a story makes it 22 times more memorable than just using facts alone. So, now we have stories that we can relay and relate within our client meetings. When we are talking about estate planning, we have imaginary money on the screen, and we just ask the clients how much of this money they want to go to their estate. All of it, or do they want to give 50 percent to the government?

12. Crisis management. Bertrand Piccard in Miami talked about a crisis as an opportunity. So, when COVID hit the U.K. and we went into lockdown on March 23, we had two choices: fight or flight. We came out fighting and used this as an opportunity to engage with clients in new and productive ways.

And we copied Brian Ashe’s statement, that some people made money and some people lost money during the global financial crisis. Which one do you want to be during COVID?

13. Think out of the box. In Vancouver, Erik Wahl, the graffiti artist, talked about using disruptive strategies to ensure you are memorable. When we have face-to-face meetings, we have cranes and a whiteboard, and we ask clients to get involved in drawing their goals. Once COVID came and face-to-face contact ended, we had to learn Zoom.

So, I copied Bradley Johnson’s fantastic Twitter background. This strategy of Johnson’s allowed me to continue my disruptive strategies to challenge, provoke and engage with clients in a way that I would not have thought possible in January this year.

14. Go back and revise. Go back to your notes from MDRT team meetings, reread them several times as I have done, and take the knowledge and put it to good use. Eighty percent of people don’t act on information. Be the 20 percent instead and continue to make Top of the Table.

Andrew William Maher is a five-year MDRT member with one Court of the Table and three Top of the Table qualifications. The recipient of two grant from the MDRT Foundation for his charity work, Maher has been a business owner for 26 years, after being a teacher and a professional basketball player.