Episode 102: The Elusive Second ‘P’

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 Stromso coming to you live from the Living Agency Laboratory. And today we are going to be talking about the elusive second P. So you have some great people on your bus.

Now what?

Well, you need to create some world class processes for your A team players to work within.

Let's dive into the second piece. So after you get excellent people on your team, A players on your team, you've got to install and have developed world class processes and systems or the second P. Okay, so insurance stinks until you need it. We used to have a guy early in my insurance career, his name is Joe Harvey. I worked in a Main street agency early on and he would stop in and say, hey, I was thinking about you guys. Insurance stinks until you need it. Well, isn't that the truth, my friends? So what do you do? What is your process and system in your agency? When people need you the most, it's absolutely critical that you are there for them when they need you the most. The claims process, a fully developed proactive claims process system is absolutely critical. We have directionals that go out via snail mail. We have a service report that goes out electronically and via snail mail at the end of the claims process that finds out critical information that we need to know. It's now texting immediately once the claim happens. So they have the adjuster's information, the claim number, the direct telephone number and the email for the adjuster or right in their phone, which, which is where they're going to be looking for it right away. And there's a lot of other things that go on in our world class claims process. We also have a claims liaison within our office who's fully scripted. And this liaison does not necessarily have to be licensed while it's recommended. Doesn't have to. Because the information they're looking to share and gather has nothing to do with coverage. It simply has to do with proper communication and make sure that the claims people are in touch with our customer to make sure that we continue to move the claims process along our agency. Internet is the directional for everything in our organization. Whether people click on Explorer or Chrome, they don't see, you know, Facebook or Google or anything else. They see our portal, our SIA way, the way they do things. If we were looking at the homepage of this custom agency Internet, they would see our goals as an organization. They see it every single day. We put other notes in there in addition to that. I've learned that it is critically important because people are silently waiting to be led. I originally developed an agency intranet. Thinking back about 16 years ago was the first time that I developed this and began to use it. And it's changed everything for us. Back when also through growth, then an acquisition, I had situations where people were not operating on the same page. And it was up to me to do something about it. My response is my responsibility. And it was up to me to do something about it. I was grinding on it because, you know, Susie was doing things different than Stan. And Stan was saying, no, this is the way it should be done. Susie was saying, no, this is the way it should be done. I had to come up with the way it should be done. And I was about ready to invest $3,000. It's never spending, it's investing. I was about ready to invest $3,000 in an outside consultant who's going to solve everything. What I couldn't get my mind around was what was going to happen after the consultant left. Things are going to change. There's three things certain in life nowadays, my friends. Yes, death. Yes, taxes. But the third thing now is change. Okay, so then I was sitting at home grinding on it, because that's what we do as leaders. We're thinking about it 24 7, 365 almost. I was sitting there grinding in my home office one night. I look up on the shelf and there was a book. I pulled the book off the shelf and there it was, the task organizer system. I immediately implemented it. It changed everything. Within a short time, we had 540 task organizers documented on how to we do things. And then as we continue to evolve and grow, we went into video training, custom tutorials, etc. We originally started with Camtasia, which is a paid piece of software. Now, my friends, the world's at your fingertips at absolutely zero cost. Zoom us loom. The sky's the limit. YouTube, you can create your own private channel. I mean, there's so much opportunity. Don't let something like an excuse be in your way. Okay? So lead your team, tell them how things are expected to be done within your organization, and then just continue to move forward. Number three and the second P. High performance teams. It's absolutely critical that you lead your team and you position everybody for success. We in our organization use the PX3 program, which is passion, purpose and profit. And profit is not always monetary, but it's the way that we continue to position our team with their individual goals for continued growth, for continued development every single month of every single year, going forward all the time. OK, so the PX3 plan, everybody has their own book. It talks about passion, it talks about purpose, it talks about profit, and it talks about taking action. Nothing good will ever happen by thinking about it or talking about it, or only action will get you there. It's got a place to document their top nine goals for the year. And then we simply say, let's circle the top three that are most important to you. Those will become your top three goals out of the gate. And then we move on to accomplish those goals. As an example, they write the top three goals at the beginning of that month at the top, and then under each goal we have five individual action items or up to five individual action items that they need to work on consistently to reach their goals. If it takes them two or three months to knock off a goal, no problem. Once they do, just go back to one of the other six goals that were not circled and move one of those in to continue to accomplish. Now, at the end of the day, it's absolutely fantastic when people begin to become more through this process. And I have found that they become more personally as well as professionally. And when you participate in that, absolutely magical. We've created a marketing idea calendar for people every month so that they can continue to work towards that. And we also encourage people to read their goals at least two to three times a week. I personally read my goals five days a week or so. I have six different goal sheets. I use a different format, but it's the same thought process. Knowing your destination is all you need to get there. And then at the end of the PX3 plan, there's a monthly review. We debrief on what happened this month. Hey, some things I was consistent with. Great. Some things I wasn't so consistent with. No problem, nobody died. Let's learn from it. Move on. What were your wins? What were your lessons? What were the fixes? What were those aha moments? I had somebody that had an aha moment just yesterday was fantastic. I love that when they say that. Three things I'm most grateful for three things. The greatest lessons that I learned from study and practice this past month. And if they're not studying and practicing to become more, they can't become more. My friends. Encourage them, lead them. People are silently waiting to be led. What's your investment? Simply let them know when to show up. And I invest personally 20 minutes every single month with every team member on the calendar. And number three says unless otherwise advised, the monthly updates will be on the calendar. If you will not be in the office, it's whose responsibility to reschedule? Not mine. It's theirs. It's their success that we're trying to support. And really when I'm meeting them during the monthly meetings, that's the only question I ask. What more can I do for you to support you in your growth and development within our organization? Because that's what I want to do. I would just had a back and forth with a team member last night on some very personal items that are part of their development program and I was so honored that the person trusted me enough to share some, I mean pretty deep stuff that they were working on that they needed help with. Because that is what I want to do. I want to help that person with that so we can continue to become more together because we are better together. This just happened and I couldn't be more honored that something like this would get put up in a forum. One of our unstoppable forums. This person was just listening to our podcast which is unstoppable profit podcast.com by the way. Unstoppable profit podcast.com just listen to our podcast on leadership in the PX3 program. Wanted to share a quick story. Did PX3s with all the team members last week? Our newest hire is a customer service broker. She told me her goal is to cross sell upsell so they'll more revenue will be present than we're paying her in salary. This team leader was blown away. These meetings and the tool are so valuable to our organization. Thanks Mike for the inspiration and the tool. Congratulations to Anthea and Douglas for implementing. That's why it happened because they implemented and we just provide the tools. It is on you to implement. Thanks for sharing. Anthea and Douglas. Congratulations on your success. So we have excellent people. The first P the second P is world class processes and systems.

And remember 3 times 5 times 50 equals 750. It won't happen overnight but it can and will happen if you focus. Follow one course until success and most importantly get your team on board. They are the ones doing the tasks every day. Incentivize them, motivate them. Let them take ownership in it.

Thank you for listening. If you would like to listen to more episodes or share this podcast with with someone you care about, please visit www.unstoppableprofitpodcast.com now go out and make a difference. Be unstoppable and leave no regrets.