Episode 174: Rowing in the Same Direction

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.

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Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. Today, I want to bring something to you very special because it's been a constant conversation in our UPP circles. All of the members of our Unstoppable Profit producer programs have been talking about this. I've been sharing it with them. It's something that was developed when I was living the UPP life. And a lot of people say, you know, we see the up life, we hear you talking about UPP life. What the heck do you mean by UPP life? Well, it's a mindset. It's, if you will, a skill set. It's a way of living. It's a way of growing your business, creating wealth and positioning, positioning yourself to live life on your own terms. And that's all we want for people that we're privileged and honored to work with. It's that peace of mind to do what you do. And so I've been privileged to get to that point in life where we're able to do what we do. My wife and I acquired a property in the mountains which was a dream a couple of decades ago. And we, we have a specific, you know, set of goals in our personal life that we've talked about for multiple decades that we hope to accomplish. And one of the pieces of that we were able to accomplish. So we've been spending time there and then we have a vacation property. We went on vacation and this is all in late June, July. And so there was a lot of time when it was downtime. And for me, and likely for a lot of you over high achievers, downtime, and you don't necessarily get along for too long a period of time, but, you know, spending it with family and, and just getting away is awesome, right? But, you know, I've got always got that antsiness about me. I'm ready to, you know, tackle and achieve, tackle and achieve, to grow more consistently almost on a daily basis. So we were on vacation again in July and I had downtime. And there was a book that I've been meaning to finish. Now this particular book is a phenomenal study. And this book is not available on Audible, which is my primary device as far as my learning and growth. And generally what I do is when I'm recommended a book, I will get into it on Audible and if I like what I'm learning, I will immediately buy the book as well. Many times I buy the book anyway, right off the get go. And so I have it in my possession because when I start studying it, if I like what I'm learning, I will immediately go right to the book. I'll start highlighting, underlining dog earring throughout the study. And that's where I get the greatest knowledge. And you know, a lot of people say, Mike, where do you get all this stuff? It's my consistent, habitual, disciplined learning on a daily basis that creates these thoughts and the creativity and everything else that we do and the next changes and you know.

Ideas, new ideas, creative ideas, the next thing that we're going to implement as an example. So anyway, on vacation, living the up life and I got, I had time to finish this book. So I finished this book. But while I was reading this book, I came across a phenomenon that, you know, I've heard about the thought process before, but this really cemented an idea in my mind and I thought, aha, it's the next great evolution of what I'm going to do. From the leadership chair for our team, for our team, our current team, to make sure that we're always moving in the same direction because we have goals, we have a vision plan that is documented, we talk about in our team meetings and our huddles and everything else. We have a scorecard that keeps score of everything that we're working on, everything that we want to achieve. Every target, you can't hit unidentified targets, right? So every target that we want to hit is on the scorecard. And then I've developed a third document that we circle around. Now keep in mind this is for our UP team. This is that particular business adventure that we're on. So you can create this for the agency business as well. Simple. But you've got to think about it and create the right plan creatively for your agency. So we've got the vision plan, we have the scorecard, and we have something we call the tangible desires list. Now I've been privileged to interview a number of agents across the country over a period of time and learn the things that they want in their agency business they don't currently have. And I have a strategic way of finding out what that is. And I found out and I've started to create a List, and that's the tangible desires list. And the good news for all of you, we're working consistently on that list to bring you the solutions, ideas and a way to get those results. And we want to help you get that. So this list, there's now 58 items on it, our tangible desires list. It's all the things that all of you have said that you want for your agency business, for your life, to help you live the up life. And we are going to help you get it. So super excited about that. So that information is part of our internal working at upp and we talk about it all the time. So I'm reading this book and I'm going through it and I thought, aha, this is the next great leadership opportunity that I've got in the leadership chair at UPP to share with my team, to encourage my team to lead my team. And I said, I'm going to immediately implement that when I get back. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to read you the section out of the book. By the way, the book, if you're dying to know what it is, I'm not going to withhold this from you. It's called they can't eat you and it's by Mark Sparks. Mark Sparks is a serial entrepreneur outside of our industry. And by the way, there is tons, tons of talent, creativity, super high achieving, super successful people outside of our industry. Don't forget to study them too. Okay? So Mark Sparks has grown and turned more than 30 companies in the entrepreneurial realm, has a ton of wisdom, and so I'm learning from his wisdom in his book. Again, they can't eat you. And if you're on the video version of the podcast, you're seeing the book they can't eat you by Mark Sparks. It's available out there. Just gts it. Google that stuff and you'll find it. So I'm reading through the book and he got to the chapter. He's talking about communication. Aha. Sometimes a lost art, right? And bigger than that, a way of communicating.

Let's be clear on this. Including your team. By the way, who's your number one customer?

If you're thinking about that and you're going through your client list, I'm here to share with you. Your number one customer, if you have one, is your team. Your team is your number one customer because they are taking care of your clients, they're taking care of your prospects, they're interacting with your community people, your team, they're watching everything you do and everything you don't do, listening to everything you say and everything you don't say. Your team, you've got to be the example, the leadership example for your team. So communication with your team is uber, uber important. Okay, so I'm going to read verbatim from this section of the book, chapter 27 over communicating to your team is crucial. It doesn't matter if you have one person or a hundred people on your team. I've been a serial entrepreneur all my life and it still amazes me that no matter how much over communicating I do, there's always someone on my team who, who doesn't get the information I'm sharing. As a leader in your organization, your number one goal is to make sure that everyone is rowing in the same direction.

Aha. That was my turning point of my reading in this particular section. And I said, you know what? I, as a leader, and I suggest you, I strongly suggest you do this as well as a leader in your business organization, make sure that your team is rowing in the same direction. And what I thought about when I, when I had this thought as well, I thought about our incredible, unstoppable platinum coaching member of eight years, I believe the unstoppable Claudia McLean, whose daughter is a rowing coach, world champion rowing coach and has leads rowing teams to world championships. And that's what she does as the rowing coach. She's making sure that everybody is rowing in the same direction to get to the goal and in that particular instance, to win the race. Right. Thank you Claudia for sharing that journey with us. Keeps our mind thinking of high achievement. So that being said, we want to keep everybody rowing in the same direction. And so I thought about that. I said I know what I'm going to do because as you may have picked up already through listening to the podcast, thank you so much by the way, for investing time to learn and become more through the podcast. Anyway, if you've learned, I am very religious on my planning. If you're failing to plan, you're planning to fail, as we learned from Ben Franklin and many others. So I have a Sunday planning system that I use in my life religiously every weekend, normally on sometimes Saturday into Sunday, but I am consistently planning my coming week. So part of my Sunday planning system now includes a segment or a feature called Rowing in the same direction for our team. And so I read that and I said I'm going to go back and create a rowing in the same direction communication with my team. I am going to over communicate with them. And one of the other things that we share in our circles is in fact, not only am I going to share it with them seven times, which we learned from one of our coaches. People need to hear things at least seven times and sometimes more, especially in today's noisy, polluted world, right? So people need to hear things at least seven times or more than that. We call it welching them. And we learned that from the one, the only Jack Welch of ge. I picked it up originally from his book Winning and Jack Welch, who I've also studied, I've studied a lot of his audio trainings, etc. Etc. Jack Welch says, and he's got this cranky little voice that I was listening to the audio training and I'll never forget it. He says if I've got a message that my team needs to hear that it's critically important to our success and us achieving our goals, I'm going to send that message to them so many times they're going to want to barf. In his opinion, that's how many times he sent the message out. That's a prime other example of over communicating to your team. So what I started was a series and this has been going on for a couple of months now, part of my Sunday planning session. I send that, that over communication email to our team during my Sunday planning session every single week and they get it. It's there for them to begin their week as well. I send a message based on what's going on through our team meetings, through our huddles and everything else that's going on in our UP world and serving agents across North America. I position things from a leadership standpoint. This is what we need to be thinking about. I send the most recent version of our vision plan and our scorecard and our tangible desires list and I consistently update this stuff to lead them, to position them to do what they need to do to lead our organization up to the next levels, which is where we're going. We're privileged and honored. So the title, the subject of that communication is rowing in the same direction. And I try to do something unique every week to make it a little bit different and fun and engaging the whole nine yards. But something happened. And part of living the UPB life is to be able to out, to be able to be out enjoying family and so forth and so on. So my wife and I were down traveling to watch our grandson who is a sophomore in high school and a top notch football player. So we traveled to go watch one of his games and we were down. We stayed At a hotel overnight. And we're in this hotel and I'm observing everything that goes on. By the way, that should be part of your entrepreneurial journey. You should be observing and learning from everything going on around you all of the time, every day, in every way. Hey, they're leaving clues out there. Sometimes not successful. But use that as a storytelling line in leading your team as, hey, I was out recently in a business and I observed this. I don't want that to happen to our team. I want to make sure that we're always.

Over, under, under promising and over delivering as a mindset. Got it. I hope you pick that up, find the things that go on in your own life and tell a story around it. You're pointing to an outside third party thing. Back to the hotel trip with my wife to look to watch our grandson play football. So anyway, by the way, I'm proud to say our grandson, his team is really, really good this year, and they had a great game. So we're down there watching the game, stayed overnight, and I got up the next morning and we're having breakfast. And I'm observing this one girl working, and she is top notch. I mean, she's working hard, she's keeping her head down, every little detail. She's taking care of it in the breadfast experience. And I was watching her, and when I see people like that, I watch what they do. And I'm watching her and, you know, I would want to interview her and potentially hire her in a heartbeat. Hardworking, achieving, dedicated, you know, taking care of things without being told she's owning her position on the team. And so what I do in that particular situation, I grabbed a larger bill out of my pocket and I walked over and I looked her in the eye and I said, hey, I just wanted to let you know that you are doing a great job and thank you for working so hard. And I paused. There's power in the pause. And I handed to the bill and I said, hope this makes your day better. And walked away. So anyway, after breakfast, I walked up to the front desk to ask him a question. And there's these three team members at the front desk. And they were all a positive attitude. And I'm starting to think to myself, aha, this is Leadership 101 at this hotel. And so I started having a conversation with them, and I was telling them how awesome their teammate was and how awesome the entire experience of the hotel has been. And I just wanted to commend you guys for doing a great job. And. And I Noticed that the name tag on one of those people was one of the. Maybe the team leader for the entire hotel. And they're all standing there smiling. Remember, praise and recognition opens a lot of doors when deserved. Okay? And so they started saying, that's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I was able to tell them, I said, you guys are obviously rowing in the same direction, because I had this mindset in my mind, right? And they said, yeah. And they all started simultaneously. All three of them started rowing a boat. And I'm going, all right, this is meant to be. And so what I do in that particular position is I am always ready for a picture, for a video and lead them in that. So is rowing in the same direction a good idea in the highest achievement realms in any industry? 100%. So I'm going to show you that video right now of them rowing in the same direction. They were engaged. They were fired up. They are creating phenomenal client experience.

Not customer service, client experience. Hear me clear on that one. They are creating phenomenal client experiences in their hotel. And they are all rowing in the same direction. And they were on the spot, ready to go, no hesitation, immediately, yes, we're rowing in the same direction. Check this out. This is awesome. Row, row, row your boat gently down the street Merry, merry, merry, merry. That is loving. Wasn't that awesome? I have to tell you, that was one of the top experiences that I've had out there in the business world recently. Just, you know, there are people out there, there's lots of good people that are working very, very hard in the entrepreneurial realm. So look for those people, look for those experiences, learn from them, and most importantly, make sure that your team is always rowing in the same direction and lead them, lead them with your vision. And I hope that your vision plan is documented. That's something that we are working on very hard right now in our unstoppable profit producer program circles. All of our coaching members have been exposed to the vision planning and the documentation of the vision plan. They know what the scorecards are, so they've got the vision plan documented. They've got the scorecards and everything else that they need to lead their teams in the right direction. Direction and to make sure everybody is rowing in the same direction. It's a phenomenal, incredible, incredible opportunity and we are pumped and excited for the future. I hope this has helped you today. Is your team rowing in the same direction? Share with us in the comments below. Whether they are or if they're not, what can we do? To help you to help your team be rowing in the same direction. Like that hotel team like the unstoppable Claudia McLean's daughter's rowing team World Championship rowing in the same direction like our UPP team rowing in the same direction to better serve you, to help you grow your business, create wealth so you two can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. And we want to help you row in the same direction. Let us know how in the comments below and I will see you on the next podcast. And by the way, if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromso. I'm widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can find out more @unstoppable profit producer.com if you're interested in attending one of our virtual or live events, you can find more information about those events at our virtual event portal is up fast start.com or our live event portal is be unstoppable boot camp.com both events are designed with some of our best money making strategies developed over 35 years of research in your industry, 100% of my time as a proud independent insurance agent in the trenches and these money making strategies are designed to help you grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. And please make sure that you Go To Unstoppable Profit podcast.com Go to the top and subscribe so you don't miss one episode of all of our money making strategies that we're sharing with you every single week. And again our our podcast is available out there as well on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, now Amazon and all the other channels and our YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube, search Unstoppable Profit Producer and click on that. Go to Videos and all of our podcast videos are right there for your continued learning and growing pleasure. Thank you for joining us. We hope this has helped you. We hope you are moving to or are living the up life. Because that's all we want for you. That sweet, incredible peace of mind. That quiet confidence knowing you're going in the right direction. You have a plan and we are going to help you get there. Until next time, make a difference. Be unstoppable and leave no regrets.

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