Episode 113: Social Proof REVEALED (Encore Presentation)

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. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. This is Mike Strompso coming to you live from the Living Agency Laboratory. And today we're going to be talking about why why people should do business with you and your agency over and above any and all other options available to them. It is one of my very favorite subjects. It is the very first subject that I dove into that I learned so much about right out of the gate over two decades ago when I was 100% responsible for my scratch agency. And it's called Social Proof. Social proof. And when people say, Mike, when you talk about why should people do business with you over and above any and all other options available to them, what does that mean? I said the first thing that you need to have in line on game ready to go all of the time is your social proof arsenal. Easier said than done. And it's something that needs to be built into the three Ps as part of your ongoing processes that are executed by your excellent people. Remember, the base philosophy of the Unstoppable Profit Producer program is the three Ps. It's a simple three step blueprint that can be implemented in any business, agency, businesses and otherwise. And this simple three step blueprint called the three Ps people, processes and Promotion. When you have excellent people on your team, world class processes and systems in place, all you simply do is promote the heck out of it. You're going to grow your business, create wealth for you and your family, and you're going to have more freedom to live life on your own terms. So, social proof answering the question why is part of your processes. And in another training that I just got done doing recently, I repeat this all of the time. The late great Zig Ziglar said, motivation is like bathing. It's recommended daily. Training is like bathing. It's recommended daily. Building your social proof arsenal is like bathing. It's recommended daily. You've got to be building your social proof arsenal all of the time if you want to have top notch, top class, first experience ways to wow the people that come in contact with your agency. So let's get right to it. What is social Proof all about? Well, basically there's two things below the social Proof header. In a business world, things like testimonials and other words and whether it be. I'm going to get down to the details in just a minute. So we'll just call it testimonials and then some type of risk reversal. Some type of risk reversal. In our particular agency world, it's a guarantee. We remove all of the risk that people might have in doing business with our agency. And if they're not 100% satisfied, we'll refund all of their unused portion of their premium. We'll part friends. It's really that simple. So let's dive into this way back when, when I first learned all about social proof, I started collecting testimonials. Back then it was just written words on a piece of paper that people were willing to share about their experience with our agency. I created a testimonial sheet. I put that back. Then I was using something called a fax machine. Some of you may or may not know what that is. But anyway, so I put the testimonial sheet behind the quote on a fax machine and then I had created a one page guarantee, risk reversal or risk removal product, if you will. And I simply started putting that behind the quotes, started faxing those two items out with every single quote. And, and I remember doing my math at the end of the month, our conversion ratio on those quotes after one month was up over 31%. Because of the social proof, my friends. People don't care what you say you've done for other people. They don't care about what you say. You're a salesperson and they don't want to listen to that. What they care about is what other people say you've already done for them. That's why the social proof is so stinking powerful, my friends. It's the biggest, most underused item in the business world today. Some of the best companies out there do use it. They use it very, very well. They use it very, very strategically. They use it at 100% of the way. Kudos to them. That's why they continue to grow. That's why they continue to get better. That's why they continue to get more profitable. Because they, they are using social proof. So again, what is social proof? Let's talk about the testimonials. Testimonials are simply written words of praise that other people give you about and what they're telling about. And those words of praise are their experience with your business. So it's simply as simple as asking for those words of praise. Now my Definition. If you've ever heard me train on a referral program, a world class referral program, you will hear me say that it's not just asking for them. The first thing you need to do is you need to earn them. And it's the same thing in testimonials. You've got to earn them. But bigger than that, I've recently developed new thoughts on this. Asking and earning are important, but bigger than that, you've got to deliver. You've got to deliver every single day, in every single way, every single time to be able to earn the right. You just to earn the right to ask for those testimonials. So you get to set the bar really, really high to be able to ask for those testimonials or those words of praise, right? So you can ask for them. You can ask people to just write something out on a piece of paper and sign it. We have a form for that. But nowadays it's not quite that easy. Now we have this new thing in the world called Zoom. Yes, Zoom. I just got done. I teach this stuff to our business clients. And so I just got done teaching a business client. And a business client is having a 10th anniversary. And so the business client came to me and they said, Mike, we love that teaching that you did for our team on Social Proof. We're collecting testimonials, we're creating a guarantee, but We've got our 10th anniversary coming up. Hey, would you mind giving us a video testimonial via Zoom so we can build it into this program that we're building for our 10th anniversary? I said, I would love to. I'd be honored to. That was. I love the fact that they're implementing. Implement, execute and take action. Don't talk about it too much. Don't think about it too much. Just implement, execute and take action every day, in every way and you will have your next wins. Sometimes there will be lessons. But back to the matter at hand. I love the fact that that client did that. So anyway, I said, how are we going to do this? They said, oh, hey, we'll just have our marketing person set up a Zoom call. We'll get you on Zoom and we'll do the testimony right there on Zoom. I said, I love that. So my friends, we, we have zero excuses. Excuses like a body part. Everybody's got them and they all stink. Forget about that. Don't make the excuse, just get it done. So that's the newest, easiest, latest, greatest way to get testimonials is via Zoom. Just hook Them up. Get your background in order. We have custom backgrounds for both of our businesses that we have in order. Get them on there and just have them give a quick testimonial via Zoom. Boom. It's really the that easy, my friends. But so if they want to give you a written testimonial, great. If they want to give you a letter, great. If they want to give you a review on Google or Yelp, great. Or in your Facebook page, great. It doesn't matter. Now, the thing that you need to do, if they give it to you in that particular fashion, say on Zoom, or say via your phone, if you're standing there face to face with somebody and they just had a fantastic experience or they came to you with a claim issue and you took care of it and put out the fire and earned your stripes, and they said, oh, we're so glad we do business with you. You guys are just awesome, man. I came. I was worried about this. You guys took away all my worry, solved my problems. You guys rock. I'm grateful to do business with you, my friends. Right then and there is your opportunity to ask for that.

Social proof. Okay? Whether it be written, if you happen to be face to face with them, pull out your phone and say, hey, so this is how the ask works. Okay? First of all, you have to look for that emotional moment when they are ready to give you those words of praise because of something awesome that you or your team just executed within your business operations. So you hear, by the way, two ears, one mouth. Two ears, one mouth. Two ears,. One mouth. You're always listening for the opportunities. When you hear that opportunity, you will stop and you'll position them, say, hey, I am so happy that we were able to help you out. By the way, I'm wondering if you might help me out real quick. You see, the law of reciprocity is always in effect. The law of reciprocity is always in effect. So you just help them out. They're all happy. Hey, I wonder if you could help me out real quick. Yeah. What can I do for you? Well, you know, people that do business with us are always asking about other people's experiences with our business. And I'm wondering if you might share a few words about your experience with our business right now. And they're like, well, how do I do that? What do you want me to do? Well, there's a couple ways we can do it. We can do it in writing me, but the fastest and easiest way is I've got my cell phone here. We'll just shoot a quick video, and they're like, okay, no problem. What do you want me to say and what do you want me to do? And at this point, you become a coach. Okay, so you will coach them on what to say. As simple as. We'll just call it Jane Doe. Jane. Thank you so much. I'm glad we were able to help your situation. So what you say? I'm going to hold up two fingers. When you see two fingers right above my phone, that's when you just start and say, my name is Jane Doe, and I do business with Stromso Insurance Agency. And I just wanted to share a few words about my experiences with Stromso Insurance Agency. And at that point, Jane, you just say, whatever comes to your heart, whatever's on your heart, whatever's on your mind, just say it in your own words. It doesn't have to be perfect. It's always better if it's not perfect. Just say what's on your mind. And there's no time limit. So you just talk as long as you want. And when you're done, smile, and I'll turn the camera off. We'll be done. How does that sound? You comfortable with that? Yeah, I can do that. Great. All right, so let me get the camera ready. And by the way, because it's a video, hold your camera sideways. Our marketing director, my teammate, taught me it's like a movie screen. So turn it sideways and hold the two fingers up and just let them rip. So here's what you do. When you get the zoom or the video testimonial.

After they're done, take the audio and transcribe it. That way you have the written words. Yes, that's a ninja strategy.

A stealth ninja strategy is to transcribe all the audio into written. And now you've got written testimonials. In our business, we have over 2,300 written words of praise and testimonials that we can use for any particular situation. So let me give you something to think about before we move on to risk reversal. Okay, so what do you do with all of these words of praise and testimonials? So I've got a teaching that I do on blogs and how to expand on blogs and how to better penetrate the SEO environment, the online environment. Remember, there's two environments in marketing. It's really, really simple. It's not complicated. It's offline and online. Offline and online. So this is online. Blogs are online. So. So you have a blog, and once you do a blog post, as an example, I know you all send it to LinkedIn. Great job. We have a blog. We send it to our Facebook page. Great job. We create a blog, we send it to our email list. Great job. We send it to our Twitter list. Great job. We post it to our website. Great job. We put it out into any other environment. Great job. And I know all of you in creating your blog and have also created a vlog, which is video blog and that's connected to your YouTube channel. Great job. I know all of you are doing that. So what do you do with these words of praise? You do the same philosophy as your blog. You put it out to all of these places. Now what we're doing is we're having our marketing department and we've got people that specialize in that they use custom programs for visuals. So they take the words of praise and they put them onto this nice looking visual and then they go out on the Internet and they find a picture of the person and they put the picture of the person right next to the testimonial. Now that picture, I've learned in my own personal development training, will increase the readership. Increase the readership 27%. So get a picture of the person. Even if it's not perfect, get a picture of the person, it will increase the readership 27% and make it look good, by the way. Right? Use your talent within your marketing team. People who can do that kind of stuff, right? So that's all about testimonials, by the way. Every single time that somebody gives you a testimonial or any kind of words of praise, immediately stop. When you're done, print it out. Get a red pen out, a fat Sharpie, write, wow, thank you so much. Exclamation. Put in a $5 Starbucks card or people in the east might like Dunkin Donuts. I was on a training the other day and the person was from the East. This guy was like the world's biggest fan of Dunkin Donuts. It does not matter. Just a little something. Throw it in there with the. What you're looking to do is reinforce the activity that just happened because you want more of it. Okay? So, right. Wow. And all that. Fold it up, put the gift card in there and handwritten thank you note. Just write a quick note of gratitude, sign it, put it in, put it in the envelope. Do our custom.

Addressing of the envelope with the live stamp and the whole nine yards. Put it in the mail. You should be doing that for every single testimonial. Review everything absolutely Important. You've got to reinforce the activity that just happened because you want that activity to happen again and again and again and again and again. And remember, the law of reciprocity is always in effect. So let's jump quickly to risk reversal. Risk reversal. So once, like I said I was talking about earlier, many, many years ago, I created a one page guarantee that really promised people, if you're not 100% satisfied with the experience with our agency, just let us know, we'll cancel your policy, we'll return the unused portion of the premium and, and we'll part friends. And we have had that challenge over the years and every time it's been challenged, it's been somebody with a situation with their mbr. Something like, I paid that ticket or that ticket's not on my record. I went to traffic school. I get it, all right? But every time it's been challenged, push comes to shove, we went ahead and refunded the difference and moved on. I mean, at the end of the day, if I think about the thousands of policies that we've written over the years, it's nothing. It's a drop in the stinking bucket. If I think about, you know, the hundreds of millions of dollars of business that we've written and the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the millions of dollars of revenue, hundreds of millions of dollars of business, the millions of dollars of revenue, it's absolutely such a small drop in the bucket. So don't worry about it. Worry brings fear and fear is crippling. Don't let it worry you, just do it. It's part of your marketing arsenal. So today our risk reversal guarantee is four pages and it starts with a cover. It says, if your insurance agent is not offering an unconditional money back guarantee, ask them why not? Or simply call Mike Stromsel and found out why he does. And then it goes on to talk about the 100% complete satisfaction guarantee or your money back. It gives all the verbiage explaining to them exactly what's going to happen. It's got my picture on it. It's got a caption about who I am and what we bring to the table. You open it up on page two. Discover why these people are willing to tell how good they have it. What's below that on the entire page? Nothing. But those written testimonials. They are strategic. It's got their name and the name of their company and how long they've been a client. There's personal and professional and other strategically placed testimonials to attract A certain kind of marketplace, and to get a certain kind of marketplace to react. And what it does, it also puts our team in a position to close more deals because of the way the testimonials are written and strategically placed on the page. I hope that made sense. And at the bottom, I've had all of the teammates sign the page. So this is a page or a product or, excuse me, a document, a marketing document that every team member has signed, and they know it's going out to the general public. So by them signing it, they better get their game on and they better elevate their game all of the time. To an extent, they're under pressure. Yes, they're under pressure. We're all under pressure. But so we've got to continue to keep our game at a certain level all the time. Right on to page three. It says others who will testify to the superior results of Mike Stromso and the Total Protection team. Just ask them. So this happened to me when I was out on a very large commercial deal a number of years ago. I took the producer out to the commercial deal, and I'm sitting there just standing by his side. I was training him as a new producer within our organization and this particular client, and we had expertise in that particular industry. So the client, we got done with the back and forth on the initial meeting, and we said, is there anything more that we can do for you? Any questions we can answer and so forth. He said, there is one question I can ask. I have for you today to wrap this up. And we're sure. What is it? I want you to give me the names of five people in my industry who you currently do business with, because you told me you've got clients in my industry. And I want their name and their phone number and their email address, because I may want to contact them and ask them about their experience with your agency. Because like I said, I'm not happy with my current situation. And I want to make sure that I go to the right situation. I don't just want to run into more problems. I said, I totally get it. We'll be happy to provide that information. The good news is I had about an hour drive home. And so on the way home, I called, you know, our CSR in that particular department, and I said, hey, I want you to call so and so, so and so, so and so, so and so and so and so. And I want you to ask them if it's okay if we provide your information to this prospect who's thinking about doing business with them. Guess what? Everyone of them said, yes. And so, long story short, we wrote the account. How awesome is that? So what I also found out is I asked her a couple months later, I said, hey, by the way, do you know all those people that gave us their information? Did that person ever contact them? He goes, funny. She said, funny? You say that? You know, I've been talking about talking to them a lot because keep in mind, these are our larger clients that we're consistently conversing with them. She said, yeah, it's funny you say that because I've been asking them. Nobody ever contacted them. My friends, that is very common. So what do we do on page three of our custom risk reversal product? I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. I have nine live references along with phone numbers and email addresses right there on the page. And we're in a closing situation. I say, look, you know, every one of these people has agreed to take your inquiry. If you want to contact any or all of these people and ask them about their experience with our total protection team, have at it. And it's live. It's so stinking powerful. And if you're in a niche industry and you're trying to just close niche industry business, then you should have one of these, which is 100% custom to the niche. And those live references should be 100% custom to the niche. Right on page four are simply 11 questions you should ask every insurance agent. And I created 11 questions that are strategic to get into the mind of the customer marketplace and convert them to us. So simple questions is 247 claims assistance available from all of your companies. Can you share with me details of your referral program? And also, it's strategically intended to start answering the question, why should people do business with you over and above ending all of the options available to them. These questions, the answers to these questions will generate the answers to that question all by themselves. My friends, you just got to figure it out. And that's what we're here for, to help you figure it out. And at the bottom of the page, it says, any insurance professional will be able to answer these 12 questions with no problem. If he or she cannot. It doesn't mean that they're not a good person. It just means maybe they're not qualified to protect you, your family, your business, and your most valuable assets. My friend, the first thing that you should be doing as you continue to bolster, as you continue to improve, and as you continue to get better in your marketing and promotion of your business is. You've got to make sure that your social proof arsenal is rock solid, getting better every single day, growing all of the time. Because they don't care what you say you've done for other people. People want to know what other people say you've already done for them. My friends, I hope this has helped you. Please, if you didn't get all these notes, stop, go back, stop and go. Write down all of these strategies and most importantly, implement, execute and take action. Once you've got all the strategies written down and train your team and get out there and start collecting the social proof that you're already earning by asking, earning and delivering on the incredible business experiences that you do. Proud to be standing by your side. This is Mike Stromso coming to you live from the Living Agency Laboratory. I will see you on the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit podcast. Until then, talk to you soon. See you. 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.