Episode 101: 100% of the Marketplace

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or are well on your way to the success you desire, with the right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromso. This is Mike Stromco coming to live from the Living Agency Laboratory. And today we're going to be talking, reaching 100% of the marketplace and 100% of the way. And I've got an intro today's podcast with a slight apology. We got some feedback from our last podcast that it seems like there was somebody pounding on a table or something like that. You know what was going on. I was so excited during the podcast, and these podcast mics pick up every little sound. And I was so excited during the podcast. I was pounding on the desk. I just get ramped up talking about this kind of stuff. So I wanted to apologize for the pounding on the desk. I've been told by our director, don't do that anymore. So I'll do my best to keep it toned down. But, friends, all we want is your success. And I get, like I said, really excited talking about this kind of stuff. So speaking about talking something that's really exciting, let's talk about reaching 100% of the marketplace in 100% of the ways. You see, it's a big world out there, and it's a noisy world. About four or five years ago, I was with a guy named Michael Hyatt over in Brentwood, Tennessee, at Dave Ramsey's office. Yeah, I got to tour Dave Ramsey's organization, and that was A wow, top 10 business day of my life. Oh, my goodness, I'll have to do a podcast on that someday. But anyway, so when I was there, Dave was interviewing Michael Hyatt on the radio show that day. And so after Dave was done, they came out and introduced Michael, and I got to spend some time with Michael and look Michael Hyatt up online. He's doing some phenomenal leadership stuff, among other things. So what I learned from Michael that day, I bought his book at the time. It's Something About Noise. I can't remember the title, but it's a noisy marketplace out there. And I've learned from some of my other mentors. I mean, in today's world, people are seeing anywhere from 10 to 20,000 messages, some subliminal. A day into their world, they're getting lambasted, whether it be, you know, in their workplace via an audio program, they're listening to or that they listen to the news, God forbid, or anything like that. And then all the social media and everything that's coming at them throughout the day from the minute they get up to the minute they go to bed and it is an onslaught of information. So they are, the marketplaces sometimes are more confused than ever and they don't know who to believe, what to even listen to and what to pay attention to. So you know, Michael's book at the time reminded me of how noisy and busy the marketplace is. So that was a contributory study for me in understanding that if we want to reach any marketplace and really penetrate that marketplace with our messages, which is all about the three M's and that podcast on the three Ms. Is coming up very soon because it's a critical one, alright? So if you want to penetrate that marketplace of your choice, you've got to use 100% of the ways, alright? And it's one of the most difficult things that we've ever done. It's still a work in progress for us because everything I'm going to be talking about today, it's hard to get all of them in motion at the same time. If you wanted one word as a writer downer for today, and I know you've got something in front of you, so please write this down, don't think it, ink it. What gets written down and crossed out gets done either way. Sorry, I won't touch the desk anymore. It's automation. It's automation, alright? So you've got to automate as much as you can within your organization because you know, things like the phone and everything else, it's going to continue going, alright? So let's jump in. If you want to reach 100% of the marketplace, you've got to use 100% of the ways. And one of my favorite all time teaching questions on this subject is this.

Imagine this, you got 500 people and it may be your prospect list, okay, 500 people, you have an urgent message that they must read and comprehend. Which one of the following are you going to use to reach that marketplace? Pause for just a moment. 500 people, urgent message. You must reach them and they must read the message. Which of the following are you going to use? Is it going to be phone.

Is it going to be fax? Is it going to be email? Yes, Fax machines are still relevant in today's world in some marketplaces. Is it going to be email? Is it going to be snail mail, Is it going to be texting? Is it going to Be video? Is it going to be social media? Is it going to be something else? And a number of these subjects that I just mentioned have lots of legs behind them. So which is it going to be?

And in all the trainings and teaching that I've done over the years, I get varied responses all over the place from lots of people. And the right answer is all of them. If you want to reach 100% of those 500 people with your urgent message, you must use all of them all of the time. Like I said, it's one of the hardest things that we're ever going to do. So if you can't do all of them, don't worry. Worry brings fear and fear is crippling. So what you want to do is you want to try to identify the top three ways to reach a marketplace and use those top three ways to reach that particular marketplace. And I continue to mention this, it seems like in almost every podcast. So marketplace research is critically important. That will be an upcoming topic for us as well. You've got to understand your marketplace. You've got to understand what they're thinking about, what's the message that silently playing in the back of their mind. Whatever that is, you've got to understand it. Alright, so let's dig in a little bit and talk about all of these ways that you can reach a marketplace. Because, you know, as technology develops, as the world evolves and develops, all of these opportunities, like I said, have legs under them of different ways that you can use it. Let's take the phone, for example. Alright, so more than just picking up the phone and calling somebody and leaving that impactful message like they've never heard before, that was a hint for you. Okay. By the way, one of the greatest studies that I've recently had in that arena is my good friend Jeb Blunt. Fanatical prospecting. He details it all out for you on how to properly connect and communicate with a marketplace. All right, so back to the phone. Yes, it's picking up the phone and calling them. But what about a voice broadcast to your marketplace that is a form of delivering a phone message. I was so fortunate this year. Our voice broadcast went out for Valentine's Day and I haven't even told our director this and she's wondering, what the heck am I going to say? Well, it was so awesome. I went out on 10 o' clock on Valentine's Day and I was on a conference call and I saw a phone call come in from our daughter and I'm going, oh, I hope everything's okay because she rarely calls unless it's important. And so I quickly texted her back and I said, is everything okay? I'm on a conference call for another hour and a half. And she goes, yeah, everything's fine. I just wanted to tell you we got your voice broadcast and I picked up the phone and I turned it on speaker and Luki, who's my grandson, who's almost three, Luki heard your voice and he's going, hi Grandpa, it's Luki. And blah, blah, blah. And then Angie quickly had to figured out that it was the voice broadcast for Valentine's Day and Luki was so disappointed that it wasn't Grandpa live. But you know, voice broadcast, my friends, when done properly can, you know, position you like that in a marketplace. It is an option with the phone. So number one of the ways to reach the marketplace is the phone. The second way is the fax. Now that's not for every marketplace anymore. But if you happen to use facts into a marketplace and you're going to find that's all mostly business marketplaces and only certain business marketplaces. But it's all about your cover sheet at a minimum. And to keep it simple, your cover sheet must stop the person in their tracks. Sorry about that.

And so that it will cause them to read it. Okay, so big fat Sharpie with an urgent message with our key words that we are key trigger words, if you will, that should be infused and peppered into all of your marketing. You guarantee free new sex, alright, so you got to pepper those into that. Alright? But you know, a fax cover page with a great offer, it can still work in today's world. All right, the next thing for you is email. Now email marketing is a moving target and it's not for every marketplace. It's more of a follow up mechanism. But don't make it your only follow up mechanism. You've got to have multiple follow up mechanisms working all of the time if you want to reach 100% of the marketplace. So email, by the way, first of all, if you've not, it amazes me in today's marketplace that the number of agents that I communicate with that are even in some of our coaching programs and I asked them, tell me about your email marketing system.

And that's exactly what we get. Silence. And I said, well, which one do you use? And they'll say, we don't have one, ladies and gentlemen. That just gets me excited. Do you know why? There's a massive world out there. They haven't even tapped into it yet their acre of diamonds is just shining with brilliant diamonds waiting to be mined. But if you do have an email marketing system, you want to make sure that you can go into the back end and find out how many people are looking at your message, what the open rate is and other cool stuff that is in a good email marketing system so that you can know. And the reason that I say you cannot rely upon email marketing at a minimum as the only way that you're reaching out to people is because we look at our open rates and response mechanism and analytics and everything that we got going on and I'm sorry to say it keeps going down. Alright, so they're not looking at your messages. Think about your own activity when you're cleaning out your inbox. You know, candidly, my delete key is one of my favorite keys. Bam, bam, bam. Alright, so anyway, you know, you got to understand this, but subject line is everything. And we'll have another podcast in the, in the coming series on subject lines and headlines, right? So we talked about phone, we talked about fax, we talked about email. What about snail mail? Now snail mail is the most expensive way to deliver a message hands down. So you got to know your marketplace. If you're going to invest in any kind of lumpy mail, snail mail, something that's unique, bold, outlandish, whatever that might be, you've got to understand the ROI mechanism of your marketplace. And so this is all important stuff. But snail mail can be a very key way to reach a marketplace. And if you think they're not paying attention to your bubble gold envelope that arrives in their office, I say bs they are paying attention, they do open it, they just don't have time to contact you is the problem. So you've got to be the one effectively following up. My.

Strong encouragement on the first follow up to something like that is a phone call, a scripted or semi scripted phone call with a meaningful message telling them why it's important that you connect about that package. Right? So snail mail and the sky is the limit. You can do USPS boxes, I mean you can do FedEx packages, you can do a USPS box with a cell phone inside of it with a pre recorded message. And your phone number can be programmed into that cell phone. You can put a post note on there and say, hey, call me. I've already programmed my direct line into the phone. I mean, ladies and gentlemen, you could do that. Why not you and why not now? All right, next texting. Now everybody's got a mobile device and everybody is Texting nowadays. And if you think they're not, I again call bs. All right, so texting is something that's kind of personal though. You got to be careful. Bulk texting is still a moving target. I'm still not 100% advocate of bulk texting, but it is a situational way to connect with anybody in any marketplace with a meaningful message. Remember we talked about in the last podcast.

They'Re feeling, how are they feeling about something, what kind of experience are you bringing with them? And ultimately the end of the day, what you're looking to do is connect with them. You want to connect with them. Alright, so texting is a way to connect with them. And I use it situationally all the time with a caring follow up. And you can put visuals in there as well. So texting is definitely part of the equation. Alright, the next thing that you can do, you can shoot them a quick video. I mean, loom is out there. Use loom.com. you know, I've got a webcam on my computer and zoom us. I mean, the sky is the limit and there's, there's some very smart people out there in the business world, inside of our industry and outside of our industry who are using video in a very effective way. Hey, please write this one down. If you around all of the notes that I know you're taking, right? If you're doing video, make sure that you're adding on when possible. Text overlay. Recent experience that I had one of my close business colleagues in my own communities, I ran into her and I said, hey Connie, you sent me a couple of videos earlier this week. I just haven't had time to watch them. I'm sorry, I haven't looked at them. And she goes, no, it's all good. I know you're busy. I said, connie, can I give you a tip that would have caused me to watch the video? She goes, yeah, what is it? I said, if you had put text overlay on the video, because I was in situations where I could have looked at the video, I just couldn't turn the volume up because I didn't have my headset with me or it was disrespectful. I said I could have looked at the video and if the texted words were running across the screen, I would have gotten the same gist from it. She goes, that's phenomenal. And I'm so proud of her. You know why? Because she implemented. I got a video from her earlier this week. Guess what was at the bottom of the video? The text. I Said, you rock. Text overlay, my friends. But back to video. Video is a way to communicate with people, all right? And people are watching more video than they ever have before. And the only news I have for you is YouTube. Let me think. It costs how much? Oh, that's right. Goose egg zero, right? There's no cost. You just got to invest in some cool equipment. You can do it right off that mobile device in your pocket. It's not that difficult. All right, Video. Create your own YouTube channel. Video, email, put it on your website. On all forms of social media. I got all revved up today after my mini session with somebody and teaching them about credibility. And.

I do that all the time, by the way. I run into people and it happens seemingly every week. I ran into somebody who's seen us in their marketplace because we. We are reaching 100% of our marketplace in 100% of the ways. And they're just enamored how much we get done. And so I'll get to do teaching sessions with them. So I ran into somebody and I said, look, this is the way you do it. And I got back to the office and I was so fired up. And so I quickly did a Facebook Live session about what just happened to me. And that's the way to do it. Facebook Live. Facebook's got a lot of power out there, and they want your video. So that's a way to do it. You can put videos on LinkedIn, you can put them on Twitter, you can put videos on Instagram. I mean, the sky's the limit, friends. The only thing that is in your way is this. And I'm not going to get off on the first p in interviewing and hiring. I will add this, though, okay? So recently I was in an interview situation, and the lady started talking about all the videos and stuff that she's seen of us out there online. And instantly we had all of this credibility in her eyes. It was absolutely magical and fantastic. So at the end of the day, use video in every way possible in 100% of the ways. And the last thing that I wanted to add on is a follow up to what I was just talking about with video is social media, okay? People are paying attention to social media nowadays. They're looking at it all the time, sometimes too much, but it is what it is. So, you know, Facebook has so much power out there right now. And I was just reading a message from my original social media mentor of over 10 years, who is probably one, in my eyes, the premier authority on Facebook marketing on the planet. And she was talking about Facebook messaging and the marketing tool that it's become. Friends, it's not going away, so you better figure it out. And if you're not getting on the bandwagon right now, you're going to be left behind. I was coaching with an agent just this morning and I told him, I said, look, Will Rogers said, if you just sit there, you're going to get run over. And that's the bottom line. We don't want you to get run over. We want you to always be ahead of the pack, up in the top 20%. Our goal is that everybody in all of our unstoppable profit producer program coaching groups is in the top 3% or better. That's all we want, is your success. Alright, so you got Facebook, you've got LinkedIn, you've got Twitter, you've got Google, you've got Instagram, Instagram, you've got Snapchat, and that's a whole lot to manage, alright? And we talk about a lot in all of our programs on how we can easily automate, how we can easily manage that. It's not that difficult. I know what I was going to say earlier as well, before I squirreled off to a different subject. Friends, I'm looking at the sign on my big white board, my vision board in my office.

Here's what it says. And it started back in 2012. And I keep crossing out the year and adding the following year. In 2018, your only competition is yourself. Friends, you can have anything you want in this world. In the words of Zig Ziglar, not only if you help enough other people get what they want, but you got to also get out of your own way. Alright? So friends, you can do this. And I was articulating to somebody that I was working with last week in the book the Traveler's Gift by the amazing Andy Andrews, who I was able to see and experience live absolutely off the charts. The number one thing that I learned in that book, among many, many other things, it all starts with one simple thing. It's called a decision. If you want to change your life, if you want to make things better for others, for yourself, for your family, for your teammates, it all starts with a decision. We make decisions all day long. My encouragement, ladies and gentlemen, is make the decision that you're going to figure out how to reach 100% of the marketplace in 100% of the ways you can do it. The other thing I would like you to write down right now is 3.

Times 5. And just put an X the 10 symbol and Roman numerals 3x5x53 times 5 times 50 equals 753 small choices every single day or three small new things you've implemented every single day. Times 5 days a week give yourself a couple days off to rest and rejuvenate. Times 50 weeks a year give yourself a couple weeks off to recharge and reset the batteries. Equals 750 new things done in just the first 12 months. You can do this. If you're willing to implement you see small choices plus consistency plus time equals massive results my friends. You can do this. You got this. We are here for you when we're 100% behind your back. All we need to know.

The answer to this simple question. What more can we do for you? This is Mike Stromso, live from the Living Agency Laboratory, encouraging you to make a difference, to be unstoppable, to leave no regrets. We'll talk to you next time. Take care. Thank you for listening. If you would like to listen to more episodes or share this podcast with someone you care about, please visit www.unstoppableprofitpodcast.com now go out and make a difference. Be unstoppable and leave no regrets. Sam.