Episode 158: Training Your NEW Service Team Member

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. Greetings everybody. This is Mike Stromco bringing you the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. I am pumped and excited today to bring you something that really, in working with agents all over North America, so preeminent, so critical, and when I am positioned to have a conversation with agents because something is not going right, it's one of two things. Normally that is the reason that things are not going right and it's one of the two things that people need to update and get better at consistently. And it is. Those two things are leadership and training. And today we are going to talk about training. The late great Zig Ziglar said, motivations like bathing, it is recommended daily. And I insert that word instead of motivation in many different ways. My encouragement for you today, training is like bathing. It is recommended daily. We have got to be doing it with our teams consistently, all of the time. Training, training, training. Think about it like this. A world class athlete, how often do they train exactly? Daily? An Olympic champion athlete, how often do they train? Multiple times a day, I will suggest. So we if we're going to have a world class business within the people aspect, we've got to be training our people, consistently training them well, keeping them at the top of their game, keeping their skills and their knowledge and their attributes top notch. It's up to us from the leadership chair to make sure that they are consistently trained, consistently doing things at the highest possible level. So what do you need to be doing to train your team? I'm going to talk about just one phase of training in this particular podcast. I will bring you additional phases of training as we continue to develop this conversation because it is pretty deep. And so today we're going to talk about one of the two sides of business, of the insurance agency business. And the two sides are the super complicated business plan ready? You don't want to miss this. Be paying attention. Super complicated business plan. Get clients and keep clients. Yes, it's that simple. Today we're going to be talking about the keeping client side of it or service. The training plan for a salesperson is different than it is for a service person. So the one that we get the most requests on, service people training, what does that look like? I'm Going to talk about the new onboarding training for a service position in the insurance agency business. And then after that we have an additional segment that takes them into the one year vision plan and then we have another segment that takes them well beyond that. So stay tuned, we're going to help you with all of that. And of course in our programs we have all of this combined to fast track anybody who wants to take those giant leaps. So today we're going to talk about the people and there's eight segments to growing somebody up in an insurance agency business. An insurance agency chair, whether it be sales or service, and the service chair, it's recruiting, interviewing, hiring, onboarding and training. It's the fifth of eight segments in what we teach to help agents, you know, create an excellent team within their insurance agency business. So today let's talk about that training specifically for a service person. And if you have something to write with and write on, fantastic. If you don't, go grab it now and because I'm going to drop a lot of information on you that you need to know, it's really encompassing about the first four weeks of their time in your agency, serving the customers at the highest possible level, learning to be a great business service person. Because ultimately at the end of the day, the modern day consumer, they don't need you. They've got plenty of options. They don't need you. So we've got to, in the words of Earl Nightingale from many, many years ago that I've studied intensely, serve the customer better than anybody else serves the customer. Yes, I know that's a vague generality, but at the core that is what it's all about, what it looks like to the consumer. Completely different story. So let's get back to training specifically a service person the first four weeks of their existence in the insurance agency business. It really starts with the preparation. You know, the late Ben Franklin said if you're failing to prepare, you're preparing to fail. So it's the preparation for this time. And so we have a pre new hire checklist for a service position and it includes up to about 15 different things that you need to prepare for them to start on their first day. This is in addition to the onboarding and love bombing extravaganza that we teach. This is core training stuff that they need to know to be an excellent team member within the insurance agency business. And I'm going to rip it off really quick. Things like new business cards, handwritten thank you note to their house, send them the about your agency video which you should have created their computers, ordered and set up the desk items are organized. Everything else has been thrown away on the desk. It's theirs and theirs alone and specifically theirs that makes them feel special. Their agency management system has been set up and organized. The login works. They have a password protection system in place, LastPass, a Roboform or two that you can choose from. Set up the new teammate and the phone system. That should all be done. Their email should be created. Payroll information set up through your payroll training through your payroll company training plan is set for the first three to four weeks. The carrier training is scheduled and again the passwords are set up through the carriers and we list the carriers on the training document that we provide in our programs. The first day is scheduled intentionally for maximum success for the new teammate. The 30 day sprint is scheduled, the daily mentors assigned, the updates are scheduled with the leadership team and more. That's just a pre hire checklist for a service position with within the insurance agency business. Is it seem like a lot? Yes. But what's a good employee worth? What's a bad hire going to cost you? How important is it to have an excellent team member operating within your insurance agency business? Next, they start on the first day. What does the first week look like? We have a goal for the first week in this particular example. The goal learn the company purpose, the message, the services they're going to be providing and the basic operations for that particular service chair within the insurance agency business. Then each day of the week you assign a mentor. There should be a mentor for every day and that's the go to person in case they have any questions about anything. They don't understand that they're confused, they're not sure whatever it is that is the daily mentor that's assigned. Next, spend time with the person learning the role in the agency and the vision for the future of the agency. Discuss the training goals. Get a tour and introduction of the office or the virtual office. If that's the case, log into the comparative rater and provide a brief overview. Get the email set up, make sure it's operational. Learn the email, the phone and the fax systems. Yes, there's still agencies that have fax systems. Why? Wire fraud? To start Total, we use a system called Total CSR which we advocate and recommend. Get them into that and get them training on that. Not the entire day though, just a portion of the day. Because if they have to sit there through that for eight hours a day for all of their first number of days in the agency they're going to be bored out of their mind. You want to give them that, that possibility of accomplishment and say, hey, every day is different and this is the way we do things. Shredding procedure if you've got it. Incoming and outgoing snail mail Process Yes. Review the agency website. Learn how to create and follow task organizers, which is a completely different system. The agency management system Introduction Reinforce the daily email and more. There's so much more that we've got on the list. We've got it all documented for you in our programs. That is the first week. Now what happens at the end of the first week? The mentors and the leadership team within the agency, they do a quick debrief and recap. At the end of the week, they rate the candidate on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest. And if the candidate did not or the new team member, I should say the new team member did not get a five. The question for the team collaboratively is what could we have done to help them get to a 5 and why couldn't the person get to a 5? And then optionally, and I strongly recommend this, have a quick conversation with the new team member and let them know the results and ask them what could we have done as a leadership team to help you get a five? You've got to find that out so vitally important and help them move to get a five all of the time. Help them to reach that highest possible level. That's the first week service position within the insurance agency business. Second week. It always starts with a goal and an expectation for that particular week. The second week is gaining confidence in the agency systems. They've got to learn to become more comfortable in within the agency operational systems. We want to build that confidence going forward. So we review the previous week's accomplishments. If they didn't get anything fully completed, you move it to the second week and simply continue to move forward again. Continue learning about the total CSR system. Get scheduled for insurance licensing prep if needed if applicable. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Touch base with the mentors for the week. Identify who the mentors are for the week. Start training them on social proof testimonials, online reviews and similar operations. Training on the referral rewards program. Continue familiarization with Peter and Patty Perfect, which is something we teach within our programs. Practice training on the agency management system. The dummy clients get totally comfortable there. Shadow a team member or team members when possible. If necessary. Begin basic scanning and attaching to the agency management system and other programs within the company operations. Start insurance Company familiarization, claims, billing and everything else that they need to be aware of. Overview of any future daily schedules with who, any questions on the phone, fax and email systems. Begin working with correspondence in the client files, letters, emails, facts, underwriting, memos, email, et cetera, et cetera, depending on what position they're in and review the daily progress again with leadership. Make sure that the 30 day sprints are in progress. Redo the same process at the end of the second week and make sure that the leadership team and or the mentors could be the same people. Collaboratively assign a number at the end of the week. How did this team member do on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the best? And if they didn't get to a five, what could we have done as a leadership team, as mentors to help them to get to 5 and asking the team, the teammate as well, hey, we rated it a 4 and this is why we feel that way. What do you think you could have done to make it a five? Challenge them. Start that accountability right from the get go, but just let them know that all we want is your success and these are things that we're seeing and if we're missing something, please let us know. It's a business relationship. It's a business growth relationship. Super, super important. On to week three. Now the goal and expectation of week three is simply continue to learn and grow. Continue to learn and grow in a service chair within a high performing insurance agency business. Again, review the previous week's accomplishments and activities and if anything is undone from the first one or two weeks, move it over to week three to make sure that you don't miss anything, that all the training that's necessary is fully complete. Let me add one other thing. If there's other things that you need to be adding on for complete operations and training within your agency business, of course, by all means do it. We're trying to give you the key expectations and things that they top performing agency needs to learn and be trained upon within a high performing insurance agency business. Next, we'll continue to train them with teammates and mentors, let them know who they are and they'll be shadowing additional team members because there's other things they're going to need to learn in week three. So let them know that that's going to be happening. Let them know sometimes schedules if necessary. About that we want to begin to also introduce them to the welcome Kit series, how that works, let them know about the checklists and workflows within the agency and Introduce them to that. Get them comfortable with that training on the established task organizers. Let them know about the entire task organizer system within the insurance agency business. Continue to learn comparative raters. Familiarize them with the system with com with comparative raters. Make sure they know how to operate it and how it works system wide and agency wide. Continue to learn the carrier systems through training videos and any other ways. Set up a schedule into the future for their ongoing training and development development within that realm. Learn to follow the daily workflow checklist, whatever that looks like within your agency business and you should have a daily workflow checklist. They should be able to see the entire chart depending on how many people you have within your agency team and let them know. Build on the scanning and documentation systems that you previously touched on in week one and week two. Make sure they become more comfortable with that and they are fully operational within that realm. Build on the client correspondence why it's important. By the way, make sure you're always reiterating to them why this is important, why we do it this way, why this is as an example, the SIA way of doing things. We want to make sure that they are totally comfortable with that. Learn the claims task organizers, send out claim service reports, how they're done, why they're done, when to send them out, when not to send them out. It's all vitally important. Continue to work the welcome kit systems as needed daily. Check in with a mentor or other team member as necessary and continue to grow and develop in addition to that. Now we start to reiterate in week three the one year goals and expectations that we have for them as a high performing team member within the agency business. That's the end of week three. Again debrief at the end of week three. Collaborate with the mentors and or leadership team. Assign them a number on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the best on how you view the new team member did and again check in with the team member. Let them know your number and let them know why maybe some things they can improve. Ask them how they think they did, et cetera, et cetera to to fuel that continued growth and you're ready to head into the next week. Now what does week four and beyond look like? It becomes more of an advanced training based on the goals and expectations for the entire year. We begin to introduce things like the Wheel of Fortune, other things we do motivationally within the agency, the PX3 program. We start to introduce them to other team building facets of the organization and just the ongoing learning, we basically take everything that we've learned in the first three weeks, we recap that, we make sure they fully understand everything they've learned in the first three weeks. And if they did not get crystal clear, we just add that again to week four and we just keep building off the first three weeks, create a checklist for the fourth week and we just keep drilling down and drilling down and drilling down to make sure that they learn everything that they need to learn operationally until they get to the point where it is a see, do and teach philosophy. That's our end goal. Everything that they do the top in the insurance agency business, I will suggest there's probably 15 to 20 basic daily operational items that they're going to be doing in a service chair almost day in and day out. So you need to get to the point where they can perform those top 15 or 20 day in and day out. One where on a given day they see it.

And they're just watching and observing on the next day you turn the chair around, you're observing them and they're actually doing it. They're seeing it, they do it. And then the key is on the third day, can it be turned around and can they teach somebody else to do it? If they can't teach somebody else to do it, they don't have. They're not nearing mastery of whatever that particular item is and they need to turn around and go relearn it again until they can actually teach somebody else to do it. That's nearing mastery of any particular training item within any business, whether it be the insurance agency business or not. We hope this gives you the fast track for the first three to four weeks within the insurance agency business. For a top performing service chair within the insurance agency business, we hope this has helped you. Please get with your leadership team, make sure that you create the plan that you need. And of course we've got all of this in our programs and more. We look forward to helping you, supporting you create an excellent world class team working within world class processes and systems so you can simply promote the heck out of it. That's the basic philosophy of the three Ps and then your results are going to be you're going to grow your business, create wealth and and have more freedom to live life on your own terms. Thank you for joining us on this podcast and if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromco. I'm the host of the Unstoppable Profit podcast, widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency business. You can find me@unstoppableprofitproducer.com if you're interested in attending one of our virtual or live events, you can to learn to grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. Please visit our portals for our virtual events. It's upfaststart.com and if you want to if you're interested in attending one of our live events, go to be unstoppable boot camp.com Both events are designed to help you grow your business based on research and money making strategies. We've developed over 35 years of research and in your industry to help you grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. And make sure you go to our podcast site which is unstoppable profit podcast.com go up to the top. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss one episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. In addition to that where you can subscribe out there on all the channels we're on Apple Podcasts, you Spotify, Stitcher, now Amazon, and of course on our YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube and search Unstoppable Profit Producer. Click on the video link. All of our podcasts are there for your learning and growth opportunities. And again, thank you for joining us. And until next time, get out there and make a decision and take action. It's going to lead to your next win or your next lesson, but you got this. We believe in you. Until next time, be unstoppable. 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.