Episode 159: Acre of Diamonds

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. This podcast will give independent insurance agents all of the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or 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 Stromsol.

Greetings, everybody. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit podcast. And today I want to share with you my latest thoughts on mining your acre of diamonds. And if you are watching this, in addition to listening to it from our YouTube channel, you are seeing everything that you would ever want right before your eyes. Because every opportunity, all of the prosperity, everything you would ever want to earn in business is right before you. Sitting within your own acre of diamonds. The responsibility is yours. You have a duty and a responsibility to mine your own acre of diamonds. It is on you, however, you have got the mirror of truth, which is your constant reminder that again, the only thing standing between you and everything that you want is before you is you. You've got to work on yourselves on a daily basis. But back to mining your own acre of diamonds. Originally, this thought process came, you know, in combination with the book from Bob Berg, who's going to be speaking at Be Unstoppable boot camp this year, super pumped and excited, beunstoppablebootcamp.com in his book, Endless referrals. And he said in his book, everybody knows at least 250 people that will come to their wedding and come to their or come to their funeral. I just go conservative on that. It's easier math as well. Let's say it's 100. Okay, so right beneath you, if you've got 800 clients, multiply that times 100, that's 80,000 opportunities. What more is it that you want? Same kind of thought process within your existing client base. There's nothing but opportunity sitting there. So what? Why should you look to your existing client base first? Well, my first question is, are you 3.0? Yeah, that's what I said. Are you 3.0? What that means, are you three policies per client or more if you're not? And most of the crowds in the insurance industry that I'm privileged and honored to share with, I see virtually no hands in the air. That means if you've got a thousand clients, you've got 3,000 policies on your books. And if you don't, you have a duty and responsibility to protect everything that people are working so hard for. So it is your duty and responsibility to completely protect them. The other question for thought process is how many people in your existing book of business write a check to nobody else but your agency for every possible line of business? It's the norm. Less than 20. There's nothing but opportunities sitting there. Why is this easy for you? Why is it low hanging fruit? 60%. 60 to 70% of people, the probability of selling to somebody who's already a client, the probability of selling to them is 60 to 70%.

The closing rate versus the probability of closing somebody who's a new lead is 5 to 20%. Why in the heck wouldn't you be in pursuit of somebody where there's a probability of closing them of 60 to 70%? Why not you and why not now? Because we want you to get to 3.0 or better as fast as possibly can. So the other thought process is as far as mining your existing acre of diamonds. Here's some statistics from The Bain & McKinsey companies who have tons of data inside of our industry and outside of our industry. Their study shows over a 10 year period, if you've got just one policy for those clients, you're going to lose up to 90% of them. However, if you have two policies for those clients, that number goes down to 38%. That's a massive increase just by adding one policy. And if you have three policies for those clients, that number Goes down to 10%. Why not you and why not now? And the other thing I want, if you're taking notes, please write this down. If you're not taking notes, pause this. Go get something to write on and write with. Don't think it, ink it. The bottom line is this. Okay? Proactivity versus reactivity. You can proactively mine your existing acre of diamonds by creating the proposal to add the additional lines of business without them asking for it. And you simply follow up like nobody's business. There's fortune in the follow up, but you've got to be proactive, never reactive. Our year end numbers over historically five year periods or more consistently revealed that from our own acre of diamonds, only over 90% of our new applications closed brand new that we've never had before were a result of our own existing acre of diamonds. Somehow, some way, it's right there for the taking. My friends. All we want is your higher achievement and your ability to go close those. Remember Peter Drucker said people buy with their hearts, not their minds. Or in other words, they buy an emotion not always Logic. So how are you emotionally engaging them? I've got another question. And how do you emotionally gauge them? You play into their favorite radio station, you enter the conversation that's already going on in their minds, talking to their favorite radio station, which is wiifm. What's in it for me? And how do you make sure that you get onto that radio dial as fast as possible? Well, let me preface it with a question. You've got an important message, an important message that 500 people must hear. They must hear the message. How are you going to reach them? Is it going to be phone? Is it going to be email? Is it going to be snail mail? Is it going to be text or video or social media? What's it going to be?

Congratulations to you, the advanced students. You're right, all of them. But everybody has a preferred method of communication that if you need to reach them with a very important matter, AKA all of their insurance coverage, that you need to know their best way to communicate with them. For me, best way to communicate with me is via phone at 9am, not on a Monday. That's what it is. Secondary Zmail. That's it. But you should know that for every potential person that you're trying to have a business relationship with. Okay, so reminder, within your existing book of business, and if you don't have this implemented within your agency business right now, you must start today. And you can do many of the strategies that we employ in all of this. Starting right here, starting today, starting right now. Okay, so you've won the account, they've trusted you with their money. What do you do next? You must have a rock solid world class welcome kit series that involves reaching people in a hundred percent of the ways. And if you think just digital welcome kits are going to get you to the promised land, I'm going to suggest. I disagree. If you want to reach 100% of the marketplace, you've got to use 100% of the ways. Okay? Pay attention to your marketplace, pay attention to what they're responding to. And yes, I understand the investments. A little bit more money for the snail mail portion. I get it. If you can't afford the resources, segment your client list and send it only to your AAA clients because they're probably generating up to 80% of your commission and the bottom 20% are sucking 80% of your time because they've always got a problem with something. Okay, so we have a dedicated mind map that lays out a new client welcome kit series over 680 days, step by step by step, strategically periodically with the right information at the right time to engage them, to make them feel the love bombing from your entire team as a new prized client for your insurance agency business. What's one of the very first things that you can start today, right here, right now in the welcome Kit series? If you don't have the time and the resources, it's not complicated. It's called a handwritten thank you note. Think about your own life. When's the last time that you received a handwritten thank you note from a business that you just did business with?

That's the answer. I get a lot. Silence. Why? Because nobody's sending them out. You have no competition. The only competition that you have is that you make for yourselves. Don't let that be you. Don't let that happen to you. Send three cards a day times five days, times 52 weeks a year. That's 780 emotional bank deposits. That's another piece of a strategy. Same thought process and make them count.

How does your best friend communicate with you if they send you something other than text? Yes. They hand write you a note because that's a show of caring. No one cares how much you know until they know you care. It's a show of caring. Another piece from the welcome kit that you can quickly and easily implement. How about a half anniversary card? Yes. When is the last time you received a half anniversary card from your auto mechanic in a new relationship? How did we start that years and years ago? Well, I simply took an envelope, I got the scissors out and I cut it in half. Put some tape on the end with the note inside. I, I said happy half anniversary. And they call and say, hey, I am missing the other half of the envelope. What is going on? We will say, no, you are not. It is your half anniversary with the agency. Congratulations. Thank you for allowing us to serve and protect you for the last six months. We can't wait for the next six to 16 years of serving and protecting you better. All of a sudden they are engaged. That is just the beginning, my friends. The sky is the limit. Hear me clear on this. People refer and do business with people they know love and trust. Yes. Bob Berg said years ago, people do business with people they know, like and trust. But love is a stronger emotion. People refer and do business with people they know love and trust. So how do you get to that point within your existing acre of diamonds? All of this strategically and skillfully works together when done right. And that is what we teach in our coaching programs. How to do it right. How to Be the welcome guest, never the annoying pest. Strategically, we have another mind map which lays out a minimum of 29 ways and 29 times that you can touch the somebody strategically throughout the year. You are constantly in touch with them. You are constantly toma, which is top of mind awareness. But bigger than that, your toha, which is top of heart awareness. Consistently, strategically, all of the time you are in front of them. You are always welcome and that is what we want. That is how you get to 3.0 by being Thoma and Toha consistently, all the time. Part of that strategy is a nurturing system within your digital delivery. Things like emails, things like text, text messages, things like sly broadcasts, things like voice broadcasts. Strategically delivered four times a year. I get people telling me all the time, Mike, I get your voice broadcast messages on Mother's Day, on Father's Day, on Valentine's Day, on Thanksgiving. They are so awesome. I don't have any complaints. I get no complaints. Nothing but messages of praise for the caring tone and the message brought on those very special days. So make it happen for yourself. In the words of Joe Gerard, the most successful car salesman of all time, every month has something going on where you can touch somebody. January, New Year, February, Valentine's Day, March, St. Patty's Day, April is spring. You get the gist and make that message count. Make it personal. You want to make people feel like they've got a personal relationship with their independent insurance agent, which is you. You have a duty and responsibility to lift that relationship to its highest level. You have a duty and responsibility to protect everything that they work so hard for in your agency business. They're waiting for you to connect with them to make sure that happens. So these communications that you send out, the personal communications, make sure they're. You make sure you're using your family and your kids and grandkids and your team members, family and your team members, kids and grandkids and, and photographs. Remember, the mind works in images. Imagine this picture that the mind works in images. Use photos, use videos, whatever it takes in your nurturing communications. Do you have a monthly newsletter? We've been publishing monthly newsletters for more than two decades. Personal, real monthly newsletters where 60% of the front page, or excuse me, the majority of the front page contact is nothing to do with insurance. And every one of our newsletter communications employs the 60, 20, 20 strategy. 60% relationship building material. 20%, yeah, insurance stuff sometimes. And 20% mindless, they want to get away type stuff. Things like comics, things like crosswords, other funny stuff, the Sky's the limit. Make it Happen for yourself. 4 page monthly newsletter with an insert. The insert, you got it. Your referral program. The sky is the limit. You can do this starting right now, starting here, starting today. And we've got all the templates. I've got templates of 20 years of newsletters to help you, to help you get to where you, you want to go. And if you don't have time to do a four page newsletter on any given month, newsletter postcard. Why not you, why not now, why not starting today? The other thing, that is a huge opportunity. Everybody's got their birthday. It's their day. Nobody's going to mess with them. Nobody's going to give them crap on their day. Don't wait till the next day to give them crap. But it's their birthday, so take advantage of that. We send birthday cards, we send a video, email, welcome birthday message. If we connected with them on social media, we connect with them on social media. And when time allows, teammates make calls out on their birthday. Why not you and why not now? What about when they need you the most? Claim time. One of the best headlines that I ever picked up in my career journey. Insurance stinks until they need it. That's a pattern interrupt headline. And most people think, you know, right, it does stink. I don't like paying for it, I don't like dealing with it. I don't like even calling my agent's office. I don't want anything to do with it. But when I need it, it better be there and the protection will better be there. So we have a full claims process to show the love, to take care of them when they need us the most, to make sure that we're pursuing them in a way that they want to be pursued. The first thing you do as far as getting the claim set up is put that text message on their phone or on your agency app to make sure they've got it at their fingertips all the time. And follow the prospect. And are you doing the same thing for the claimant? Do you prospect your claimants? If you're not, why not you? And why not? Now? The next item to make sure that you've got your fence around your entire herd, to make sure you're always the welcome guest and never the annoying pest so you can mine your own acre of diamonds, is your referral program. I'm not going to go into great detail about that today because that's a whole nother podcast, but you must have a systematic, formal, reliable, welcome referral program to make sure that you are penetrating and mining your acre of diamonds for maximum roi. Return on investment. And a referral program, when done right, will return an ROI of 8 to 1 or better. Tried, trued and tested over decades in our insurance agency business, fully developed. And that's another thing that we share in our coaching programs for immediate implementation. Implementation for anybody that's there. So make sure that your referral program is rock solid. You make sure your team is trained on how to use it. Then build an accountability to make sure that that accountability, which breeds responsibility, is present within your agency. Make sure that you've created a WOW system, leaving people without words. Leaving people without words. A WOW system. Because ultimately you want to make sure that those communications to your AAA clients and those higher elevated clients leaves them without words. Not only when the new business happens, but the renewal of the business where it makes sense. In addition to that, remember this from the late, great Maya Angelou. They'll forget what you said, they'll forget what you did, but they'll never forget forget how you made them feel. That's the essence of a WOW message. It will not be forgotten. We recently had one of those happen in the last couple of weeks. Off the charts. The response from the person who received those wow communications and gifts, if you will. Off the charts. I mean, just heartwarming, positive, incredible stuff. The investment when properly mining your acre of diamonds and is potentially thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars of income for your agency, period. Agency business over time, when properly done, don't forget this. If you might be thinking, well, you know, it's not worth investing, I'm not willing to invest. Think about this with me for just a minute. So let's think about the lifetime value of a customer in your agency business. Okay, let's say that the annual revenue for a client in Your business is $500. 500. $500 in agency commission every year for an account. Let's say you're going to keep that account six years. All right, six years. That's $3,000 in revenue. What are you willing to invest to get that $3,000 in revenue back time after time after time? As much as it takes. That's my first thought process as well. When I'm thinking about leads. I'm willing to invest big money on leads because I know the lifetime value of the customer. That's really where it's at. You need to make sure you train your team. Every single phone call, every single communication with your existing acre of diamonds is a massive opportunity. You've Got to have those.

Communication methods in place. You've got to make sure your team is trained. Because the number one big mistake in the agency business is not having those role plays trained and continually trained and acted upon. In the agency business, the number one mistake is not doing the obvious. Are you consistently mining your acre of diamonds? Is your team asking for the business at every potential opportunity? Because if you don't ask, you don't get. It's really that simple. When you have. When your team members have somebody on the phone and you don't have three. Plano or better. Mr. Or Mrs. Smith? Hey, I just got a quick question for you. That homeowner's policy that we have for you, would you like fries with that? They're thinking. What do you mean you want fries? Do I want fries with that? What are you talking about? You lost your mind? No, it's a pattern interrupt. I wanted to make sure I get your attention. You're not saying this to them, obviously. No, they've. You've got their attention now. What I mean by that is we don't have your auto insurance and umbrella insurance. I'd love to take care of that for you right away. Well, I've got my auto insurance with somebody else and I don't have an umbrella. What is an umbrella anyway? Got it. So use those. Pattern interrupting and ask them for permission. Do you have one more minute for me? A minute for what? Well, I wanted to share with you the latest as far as our charitable giving and our referral program. And are you familiar with our referral program at all? Okay. And another way to say what I said earlier. Would you like fries with your auto policy? Pattern interrupt. Would you like to supersize your auto and homeowners insurance? What do you mean supersize? These are just ideas. You can use one of them or both of them in various situations as testing. As marketers, we test. Right. Would you like to supersize your auto and homeowners policy? Would you like to supersize your commercial general liability? The heck are you talking about? What I mean is I don't see that we have an umbrella for you. And so supersizing it means you supersize your limit of liability protection. You've got their attention. I noticed a gap in your insurance program. What kind of gap are you talking about? Well, I see that we don't have this or we don't have that. We don't have epli. We don't have cyber. That could potentially be a gap. You have to think about these Things like that, right? Have you heard the latest news about our referral program and the charities that are reaping the benefits because of your kind? Referrals, again, just ideas. Implement them. My personal number one closer of all time, though, that I learned from my incredible friend John O'. Leary. You can check it out in episode 64 of the podcast. He taught me, among many, many other things, that incredible day when I met John.

What more can I do for you? Find out what people want and need and help them get it and you will have everything you want. The law of reciprocity is always in effect. John taught me. What more can I do for you? Since I learned that from John, I have used it time and time and time again for maximum effect, maximum roi, off the stinking charts. It is great, great stuff. Remember, you must, within your existing acre of diamonds or beyond, be answering this question every single day in every single way. Why should people do business with you over and above any and all other options available to them? They don't need you. They've got plenty of options out there. But you've got to make sure you're answering that question in the back of their minds on their favorite radio station. You might be thinking, well, this is a lot to do. Let me give you something else to think about from somebody who you may be familiar with. You've heard about a company that helps things arrive on your doorstep the next day after you order them. Yes, Amazon. So Bezos, if you've ever studied Bezos like I have, from a business standpoint, business. Bezos used to be in the hedge fund business in New York, making respectable money. He's walking through Central park with his boss one day, and his boss said, hey, Jeff, how's it going? It's going good, but I've got an idea. And the boss goes, what's your idea, Jeff? He goes, I want to start an online bookstore. And the boss stops and looks him in the eye and said, jeff, what are you talking about, man? In the next ten years, you're already making respectable money. In the next ten years, you'RE going to become a wealthy man with our company, and you're thinking about starting an online bookstore? Have you lost your mind? And Jeff paused, looked him in the eye and said, no, I haven't lost my mind.

Boss said, hey, Jeff, I want you to think about this for a couple of days. Come back to me in a couple days, we'll talk about it again. Online bookstore Jeff. Jeff came back to the boss in a couple of days, said, boss, I've thought about it. You're right. I'm going to go ahead and turn in my resignation because I'm going to provide pursue that online bookstore. And Bezos later said, I knew that if I failed, I would not regret that, however. But I knew the one thing I might regret is never trying. Everything that I've shared with you today, everything that we share on the podcast, my great encouragement for you is you will never know how much you can do. And until you put maximum effort out there, maximum capacity, until you've pushed 100% to the outer limits of your capacity circle, and if you're not going there, then you're leaving money on the table, you're leaving opportunity on the table. You have a duty and a responsibility to push into areas of 100% capacity. Let me tell you this, let me remind you, because you probably heard it, it was a couple podcast episodes ago. But I'm constantly reminding people of this and they say, thank you for reminding us of this. We need to keep hearing this. So I'm going to keep sharing it with you. It's C plus F plus D. The number one reason people don't achieve the success that they want to in business, period, whether it be the insurance agency business or otherwise, is the C. It's lack of. Of consistency. You must up your consistency game. I learned from Brian Tracy in the book Goals. He said, there's no such thing as time management. I'm like, what? What do you mean? Everybody says time management. He said, don't worry about everybody else. It's the choices that we make as to what we do with our time. The one thing we must manage. We must manage our f. Our focus. Follow one course until success. Success every day. You must stay focused. Consistency plus focus. I learned from John Wooden, the late, great John Wooden, among many other things. What a night that was. I saw him live before he passed. He said, discipline yourself. So no one else needs to. Consistency plus focus plus discipline equals what is it to you? Yes, everybody that I speak to around the country, I say, what is it? Shouted out. And they all say, success. And that was my first thought, too. But I thought about that for a little bit. I said, no. Success is overused. Success means something different to everybody else. It's not the answer. And so I thought about it some more. I thought, wait a minute, what are we all after? Consistency plus focus plus discipline equals what? What it equals is the thing that makes people happy in business. And the thing that makes people happy in business is evidence of progress. Consistency plus Focus plus discipline equals achievement. And I that wasn't good enough for me. Achievement? No, higher achievement is what we're after. Consistency plus focus plus discipline equals higher achievement. That is what we want for you. That is why we do this consistently every week to help you into the higher achievement realm. I hope this has helped you. I hope you have got lots of notes. Just get out there and make a decision to implement, execute and take action. It will lead to your next win and your next lesson. And our lessons are failures that are our teachers. If you are not willing to fail, you're going to be left behind. Just like Will Rogers said, if you just sit there, you're going to get run over. If this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromcel, the host of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. I'm widely recognized as a leading trainer, author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency business. You can find more. You can learn more about me at Unstoppable Profit Producer. If you're interested in one of our live virtual trainings or one of our live in person trainings, you can go learn more about those. Our virtual training portal is upfast start.com upfaststart.com and to learn more about our live events, just simply go to be unstoppable boot camp.com be unstoppable bootcamp both events are designed to share with you our best money making strategies developed over 35 plus years of experience in your industry, 100% of the time. A proud independent insurance agent. All designed to help you grow your business, create wealth so you too could have more freedom to live life on your own terms. Please go to Unstoppable Profit Podcast right now. Go up to the top. Subscribe so you won't miss one future episode of our podcast. The podcast is also available on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcast, now Amazon, and of course on our YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube and search Unstoppable Profit Producer. Go to videos and you'll be able to experience the podcast with the video portion as well. Thank you for joining us on the podcast today and until next time, get out there, make a difference, be unstoppable and leave no regrets. You have a duty and a responsibility to help people protect everything they work so hard for. I will see you on the next.

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