Episode 13 : Wheel of Fortune

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. This podcast will give you all the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Millionaire agents and entrepreneurs think and act differently than others. This podcast will give you a simple, proven three step blueprint to grow your business. Over the past 31 years of research in your industry, Mike Stromso has created a unique philosophy called the three people process and promotion. This outside the box thinking and guidance provides agency entrepreneurs just like you the knowledge and tools you can quickly implement to explode your agency business. He has been there, done that, and he's still doing it. 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 episode 13 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 the wheel of fortune. We're going to be talking about motivation, we're going to talk about money. We're going to be talking about putting yourself in the mindset to continually be able to do more every single day and in every single way. So if somebody were to say to me, Mike, what is the number one thing that you've developed over the last couple of decades that is the motivator for my first P? And if you know anything about the first P, let me recap it for you real quick. It's people. Excellent people on your team. Don't forget that excellent person includes yourself. Right? First P, excellent people. Second P is processes, world class processes and systems. Third P is promotion. All you have to do is have excellent people on your team, world class processes and systems for them to work in and simply promote the heck out of it. You're going to grow your business. You're going to create financial wealth and security for you and your family and you're going to have more time to live life on your own terms and you have more freedom. It's really that simple, my friends. So you've got to install the things working within your organization that are going to create that environment on an ongoing basis. It cannot be a one shot, Charlie. You can't just do it and think it's gonna last forever. I'm gonna get to that in just a minute. All right, so if you were to say to me, Mike, what is the one thing over the last couple decades that you've developed that is the source of that internal motivation for your entire operating team and yourself.

It's the Wheel of Fortune. And, you know, that brings me back to a conversation that I was having with a very, very successful age. He also writes a blog, and I was complimenting him on his blog and how good it was, how timely it was into my inbox, and he said, mike, just as a reminder, I write that for myself as much as anything else and my friends. So on the Wheel of Fortune, I have just as much fun. I get just as much joy out of it, you know, motivating these people, bringing it, seeing the look in their eyes when they're having a success. And I'm going to get into the details of that in just a minute. So create that environment, you know, back to something we've talked a lot about lately. You want to create the experience. Who doesn't want to have that amazing, incredible experience? Close your eyes and think back to that moment when you've recently had that experience. I'm thinking about it. I had it last weekend. I got to hang out with my grandkids. We're in the tunnel at a place called SeaWorld in San Diego. And we're in the shark tunnel, and we're walking through the tunnel and. And the sharks are swimming all around us.

Our grandson was just going crazy, and I'm getting to hold him in my arms. It was just fantastic. And he just looked at me and he held onto me tight. And that was that experiential moment that, you know, I will remember forever. Watching my granddaughter on her father's shoulder brought back memories of our daughters when they were young. And they, you know, they counted on my shoulder being them for them all the time. What is that experience that you bring? Right, so it's experience plus feeling equals connectedness. And I've taken it to another level. I'm going to be shooting a video for you very quickly about this in greater detail. So experience plus feeling equals connectedness. Then you begin to build relationship through that. And when you build the relationship, it equals trust. And once you have the trust, money follows trust. It's really those things all combined. So this Wheel of Fortune process also builds that continuing relationship and trust within your own agency team. So let's think about it like this for just a minute. Who doesn't like a good game show, Right? If you grew up in the years that I did, and I'm not going. I'm not going to date myself right now, but, you know, there's a game show that was out called.

The Wheel of Fortune, right? And the story of Vanna White walking across the stage to turn the letters and, you know, candidly, forgive me, anybody who's listening, thank you. My director just reminded me, don't get so excited. I can't help it. So, you know, Vanna walking across the stage and she still looks pretty good. So good for Vanna.

That was fun. And we couldn't wait to see the next letter, what the next letter was going to be, so we could blurt out version of the answer. That feeling of excitement, that feeling of fun. Friends, your team is waiting for you to provide that to them. Because, you know, remember, people are silently waiting to be led. Lead them, lead them. Not like nobody else, right? And they're watching every move that you make. And they would rather have fun, right? Would you rather laugh or would you rather cry? So create that environment that you want and ultimately, at the end of the day, you want to walk away with an experience like no other. One of the things that we do in our Wheel of Fortune environment is we also invite people in. I've invited company reps in, I've invited neighbors in our complex in. I've invited family members in, whoever it might be, some of your key partners in your communities. We've invited them in and they just get to sit there and they get to experience. And I always make sure I give them a. At least one spin too, so they get to be involved in the experience and enjoyment. And I will guarantee you, ladies and gentlemen, they will tell people about it for who knows how long. Just as a side note, we are involved in multiple niches in our insurance agency business. One of our niches, the president of the insurance company for that niche, was in our office just this week, and he was brought in by the rep for that niche because she was in here like a month ago and she was. She came in actually on a Wednesday morning early. And I had told her, I said, our team meeting is going on about that time. If you come in and we're not quite done yet, I'm just going to ask you to wait. She goes, no problem. So she came in and that particular morning, we were showing a video at the end of the meeting, and I thought to myself, well, it's not going to hurt her to be involved in this, right? So I brought her in and she watched the video with our team and she mentioned that to me this week when she brought the president of the company in. She said it in front of the president of the company. She Said, you know, Jim, I was in here and in a team meeting environment with this team, and we watched that video together. I will not forget that for the rest of my life. And if you want to know what the video is, go to YouTube and search facing the Giants Death Crawl. Now, our team needed it at that moment because I'm always paying attention to what they might need from a support, motivation, and leadership standpoint. So I showed it that day, and she just happened to watch it. And she also mentioned this week that she noticed that a couple of people in the room had kind of tears running from their eyes. So that's kind of. That's very cool. All right. So you never know who's watching, lead them and create that experience. And the fact that she said in front of the president of the company, I will never forget that as long as I live. I will never forget her saying that as long as I live. And that's the experience you want to create. All right, so how do you play? We've got a matrix, and I've been changing up the matrix quite a bit lately because I like to keep it new and fresh and innovative and fun. I don't like anything to be the same. I like to keep people on their toes. Not even our director knows what I did yesterday to get it even newer and fresher. She's going to be hopefully uber impressed with me. And if she's not, well, I'll have to get my game up. Right? So, anyway, I'm excited about that. So we have a matrix. And the Matrix, it's a one pager, and it says at the top, think bigger than you ever thought possible for the wheel of Fortune. And it's got activities on it. Okay? And the team must complete these activities on their activity sheets in order to get the chance to step up and spin the wheel. So the sample activities are now. Our agency has evolved, especially in the last 12 to 18 months in a really different way. We shook ourselves upside down, put everything on the table, reconfigured it, and now our teams look a lot different than they did, you know, 12 to 24 months ago. But we are humming. I'm so uber happy to report another record volume month of new sales last month. The prior month, another record month of new applications. Hey, that's the results of the hard work and the blood and the sweat and the wins on the lessons. Okay, so we've reconfigured our sheets. I now have three different sheets. I got an admin sheet. I've got a sales team Sheet, I've got a service team sheet. But we all play together because the definition of team is together. Everybody achieves more. There is no I in team. You got to remember that. Alright, so sample activities is what I'm going to give you today. And you can create your own, you can make it your own and it doesn't have to be, you know, over the top as far as money value is concerned. My greatest encouragement for you is to completely understand what I'm going to say next. And you may want to write this one down.

It's basic human nature to want to be acknowledged and appreciated. It's basic human nature to want to be acknowledged and appreciated. We've got to understand that. Okay, so that's it. And so it doesn't have to be huge monetarily wise, just something, some kind of acknowledgement, appreciation. Okay, so each team has their activities list. And if they perform the activities, they fill out the form and they step up to the wheel. Alright, sample activities. Tell 10 people about the referral program during the month. It's not that much to ask, but I want to get them in the habit and they get double that reward if they do it. 20 people. Okay, so you know, we've got referral flyers, we got links on our emails, they're talking to them verbally, it's not that much, but you just have to perform the activity. The next thing is to get or Update at least 3 emails or in the sales team submissions, whatever it might be. Again, not that difficult, but we want them to perform the activity all the time. The next one is coverage increases. This might be on the service side and if they escalate it to a certain level, like 500,000 minimum on their coverage increases, they get to double that spin.

The next activity line is cross sells. If they perform at least two cross sells and close them, they get to spin on that line. And the last line is broker of record. So if they execute a broker of record, they get to spin on that line. And please note that as I go down the matrix, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 different segments if you will.

Each of them has a higher value, like a B of R has a higher value than say a cross sell. Most of the time, not all the time. Right. And a coverage increase has a lower value than the cross sell and an email has a lower value than the coverage increase. And telling somebody about the referral program has intrinsically a lower value than the rest. So the value of the prizes gets higher as they go down the matrix. And I hope that makes Sense. Okay. So each team must complete their activities and task sheets to win spins. They get to step up to the wheel. We have a prize matrix that has gift cards and cash. And every month when we do this, and we normally do it in our office, and you can do it whenever you want. The third Wednesday of the month, we get together in our lobby in our office. We got the wheel of fortune. We got music going on. We. We make it a very fun and festive atmosphere. I always have a bonus prize for the month because there's a. There's various places on the wheel of fortune sheet that shows bonus. All right. And that bonus is always something timely for the season that we're in. Okay. So like to give you an example. The month of March. Month of March is St. Patrick's Day. What does St. Patrick's Day represent? Green. So I do a $50 cash bonus in the month of March for the month of February. You know, I brought in roses. I brought in five different bouquets of roses that they can give. You know, the majority of our team is female, so they appreciate that. But if there's a couple guys, they can obviously give them to their spouses or significant others as well. Various other months. If, like, November as an example, that's, you know, Thanksgiving. And so I give gift card to a local grocery store so they can buy groceries for all their family coming over and that kind of stuff. So it's how you position and send your messaging to the team that really makes the difference. Okay. And the other cool thing, we've got extra bonuses on the matrix as well. If you mention the referral program to other people and your name is on the referral slip. When we draw the monthly winner, you get an extra hundred bucks. If we reach our referral goal, you get 200 bucks. The prize winner, prior month winner of the referral slip program also gets an extra line 10 spend. We send a referral to any client. You get a free line 8 spend. Now, what we do in our organization, anybody that sends a referral to anybody else, we've got to take away the client. If you refer anybody else in our marketplace, you get an extra line 8 spin. Because we want to be in the process of giving all of the time. You want to give more than you receive. It doesn't, you know, givers gain. It's been said, all right. By the great Ivan Meisner. If it's your birthday month, you get a free line 15 spin, which is the highest one, and you get a bonus. When the policy you place on EFT, or automatic recurring credit card happens. So if teammates get somebody converted over to EFT, or if they sell a policy that is on eft, you get a little bit of a spiff for that. Why? Because you don't have billing problems when they're on eft. Right. So. And it's got all the rules at the bottom of the sheet, friends. It's really that simple. So it's all written out for you. And so you might be saying, I already pay him for that. Well, I know that, but, you know, people often say that motivation doesn't last either. See, it's like bathing. It's recommended. Daily reminding of activity. That's the great late, great Zig Ziglar, by the way. So, reminding people of the activities they need to be doing, motivating them to do the activities they need to be doing. Ladies and gentlemen, I can show you. And I'll be happy to sit down with anybody in my financials. Over years, the money that we invest in this month after month after month after month versus our increased revenue month after month after month, year after year after year, I will guarantee you this is a huge roi. Okay? It's another way to build momentum. Much like when you say you're getting a prospect to continually say yes. You know, I learned in my days of studying outside of our industry in sales, okay, your goal is to get a series of yeses. Back to back to back to back to back to back. Does this make sense? Do you see the additional value that you're receiving by partnering with our agency? Do you understand that you're saving more money by bundling all of your policies together? Does it make sense to you that just having one phone call to make for all of your insurance needs is the best and most efficient way to handle your insurance program? Do you think it's important to have a local agent that you can go down and sit down with in the event that you need to say when a dicey claim happens? See, I'm building a series of yeses and yeses and yeses. It makes it much easier for them to say yes when you ask for their business. And that's what you're doing with your team and continually motivating them in this program. It gives them something to look forward to each month. Trust me, they do look forward to it. Okay, so let me ask you a question. How great would it make you feel if all of your team members were consistently doing the activities that brought in more new business and built stronger relationships with your clients, your future clients, and your communities than you already have right now.

Of course it would make you feel awesome. It would make them feel awesome. You know, and what would this mean for you? You see, when they're motivated to get done what they need to get done, they don't need you anymore. That's what it means for you. And at the end of the day, you're going to have more freedom and you're going to have more money and you're going to be building that wealth that we talk about.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a key second P which is processes and systems.

And it's you promoting the heck out of it to your team. You know, I learned from Nightingale years ago that we're in the sales business all of the time. Every single day, in every single way, we're selling anybody that we're communicating with on the good of doing things a certain way, of the benefit of reaping the rewards of doing things a certain way. We're selling our kids and our grandkids on the benefit of telling the truth and working hard, doing things right. We're always in the sales game and our number one client is our team. And if you are not uber focused on that the majority of the time, my friends, you're missing the boat. Don't miss the boat. I missed it for years. And you know why I missed it? I recently identified something that I'm studying my brains out on right now. It's called a conditioned mindset.

See, everybody's got a conditioned mindset in their lives for some reason. Things that have occurred with them emotionally in their past. And most people, the conditioned mindset that they leave the house with when they're 18, 20, 22, whatever that number is or before, that is what they've got. And that's all they've got. That's all they know. And unless they make the choice to recondition their mind, it's what they're gonna, you know, shell out every single day. Alright, Be the one to make a change for people.

To give you an example from the trenches.

You know, I had a meeting with one of my teammates today who's, who's absolutely, whose value has come to the table. I can't even describe it, just awesome. And I'm not the only one that feels that way. Everybody in organization tells me the same thing. And you know, she had a tough thing to talk about from a family standpoint, but you know, it was nothing bad. But I mean, you know, concerning schedules and all that kind of stuff. And I said, look at the end of the day, you've earned the right and we'll work through this. Let's just work through this. Because at the end of the day, we're all in this together, right? So you've got to lead them. You've got to help them understand that we're all in this together. We have life to live, alright? So help them live it and motivate them to do so. And this is just one of the ways I got a little bit off track. I'm looking at sos the squirrel on my desk. He said get back on track. Okay? So, friends, you can do this. You can do it now. You could start this today in your own organization. I hope that helps you. I hope that gives you lots of ideas that are churning through your mind. I hope you inked them, not just thought them. Don't ink it. Think it or don't think it. Ink it, I should say. All right. The Wheel of Fortune, friends, is team motivation at its best. And they will do exactly what activities you create habits for in your own agency team. Until next time, my friends, get out there and make a difference. Be unstoppable, leave no regrets. And get a little bit uncomfortable. I'll talk to you next time. 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.