Episode 177: The ONE THING You Must know to Win

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.

Foreignings, everybody. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. And I am beyond pumped and excited for this podcast because we have a brand new episode format that has been requested by many. So our goal in UPP is to bring you what you want and ask for. Because Joel McKinley, if they don't ask, they don't get. That's right. If you don't ask, you don't get. So thank you for asking because they're going to get. Exactly. Exactly. So I am privileged and honored to welcome onto the podcast as my episode partner, we'll call him. Because what a lot of people have done. And I'm asked Joel to introduce himself in just a minute. A little bit more, but. Or reintroduce, I should say. Joel is actually the AFY director in upp, working closely, elbow to elbow, toe to toe. Not going to show you my toe for those of you on the YouTube version, but elbow to elbow, toe to toe, in the trenches with agents, helping them get to their goals and exceeding their goals. Great job there. But you know, Joel has an absolute wealth of knowledge after working with agents, toe to toe, elbow to elbow, in the trenches. And so we thought it'd be a good idea and a lot of members have said that would be a great idea to bring him on the podcast. We'll share what we go through every week. In the trenches, helping agent. Because success leaves clues. Right, Joel?

Absolutely. 100%, yeah.

So let's do a quick intro for those of you who might be newer to the podcast or this is your first episode. Welcome. I'll give you some info at the end here, so stay tuned. But Joel has been a member of our UPP team since 2019, does a great job helping agents and as part of our team, constantly learning and growing. Very proud of Joel. So thank you for joining me on this new episode format. But Joel, for somebody who might be new to the podcast, tell them a little bit about yourself. Where have you come from, who are you, etc.

Sure. My name is Joel McKinley. Like Mike said, I retired from the army after 20 years. I retired in 2018 and had the Great opportunity to start working with Mike and UP.

Right after I retired, which, I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. Who's got it better than us, Mike?

Nobody.

And so, you know, it was getting people to boot camp and trying to get people to experience how they could help their agency and grow and create the wealth and freedom to live life on their terms. And then, you know, Mike brought up and said, didn't you keep people accountable in the army to what they wanted to do and help them to achieve those goals? I said, yeah, that's all I did. He said, great. Now we're going to, we're going to take that and we're going to, we're going to make it work for UPP to help Platinum Coach members and all the UP peeps to achieve the next level of, to get from the top 3% of agents to the top 1% of agents nationwide.

Exactly. And so, you know, like our shirts say we want to help them live the up life. And you know, a lot of people might think, by the way, what is the up life? Well, it's a mindset, right?

Yeah, that's all it is.

And where does our mindset reside?

That 8 inches between our ears.

8 inches between our ears. Like we recently learned from Charlie Plum, game changer. Right. So it's a, it's a mindset, it's a way of life. But you know, when people experience the growth and the wealth starts coming and then they have the freedom to live life on their own terms, that's when they truly get to live the up life, Right?

Yep, exactly.

Yeah. I don't know if you caught this. I saw one of our members, very high achieving member who doubled their profits after their first private one on one coaching session session. That following year, riding first class to Hawaii. That's a good thing, right?

I did see that. That was a, that was a nice looking trip that they went on.

They're living the EPP life, right?

Absolutely.

So look, thank you so much for sharing some, some details about yourself. And I know you're a dad, two awesome kids and just, you know, dedicated and committed to helping agents grow their business, create wealth and have more freedom. So anything else to add before we get started?

Oh, no. I mean, Mike, you just, you, you nailed it. Because I know my why the how becomes easy.

Exactly, exactly. So by the way, to point about what you did in the military, helping people be accountable, what was your specific title?

I was a infantryman. I was a ranger, I was a drill sergeant, I was a master gunner.

That drill sergeant is the one that I was looking for.

So I mean, that was one of the most, one of the most fulfilling jobs that I was able to have in three years. Because you take people from knowing nothing and when they leave, they're ready, they are ready to go. And that is just, that's just fuel for your soul.

And I, by the way, thank you for your service to you and your comrades who like I told you before we started this morning, you know, you, you, you know things I don't know because you have been to war, etc multiple times. But with that being said, you know, you, you brought them to a point and I remember you told me one time that your goal was to keep.

Them alive, that yeah, nobody, you know, you can be as mean as you want to them. I had a leader tell me, he said, nobody ever died in combat because their me, their leader or their drill sergeant was too mean to him. And I said, aha.

I have to be as hard on them to prepare them for what's coming next.

Right, exactly. Well, thank you for doing that and for supporting our cause of our freedom cause, if you will. Let's get to helping agents. Sound good?

Absolutely. Let's go.

So this again, this new episode format, Joel McKinley and I will come on periodically and we'll just have a quick back and forth on what's going on in the trenches and in UPP, helping the top 3% of agents nationally and what's going on in the industry to help everybody grow and become more so. With that being said, today we're going to talk about. I just thought I'd position a quick question for Joel McKinley and I'm just going to let him run with it. And we're not going to mention any names because that's the way we roll out of respect for people's confidentiality and so forth. But we'll paint the picture for you so you get the teaching point. So Joel, what is the number one thing? I mean, you're working with lots of agents every week in the trenches, helping them grow their agency business standpoint, et cetera, et cetera. What's the number one thing preventing agents from achieving their goals?

I love this question, Mike, and honestly, I love to write with a pencil. And that right there is the reason that people are not achieving what they want is they're not writing it down, continuing to look at it every single day and then when, when applicable, flipping it over, using the eraser, taking something off and rewriting when things change because your agency is constantly changing. Mike, I heard you say in many podcasts, there's three things that are guaranteed now. It's death, taxes, and change. And if you're not ready to erase and write something new, I mean, there. I mean, I've seen agents that have their goal sheet from January, and it hasn't been updated, and they're not here yet, Mike. But it doesn't hurt bad enough. But it's starting to. And they're going to change, and they are going to get there.

Payne's a very strong teacher. Right.

How bad does it hurt?

How bad does it hurt? You know, John Wooden, the late, great John Wood, and the iconic UCLA basketball championship coach said failure. Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be.

And it might be. Might be fatal for your agency.

Yeah. If you're not willing to change. I mean, based on your observations of the industry, how fast are things changing right now?

I would sit, Mike. I think they're changing every day.

Absolutely.

Members reaching out to each other throughout, through our groups and saying, hey, what. What are you guys doing about this? And then they get that great feedback from the other top 3% of agents nationally to answer those questions. I feel terrible for the ones that don't have a up group to reach out to, and they're sitting there alone. That has to be a terrible feeling.

Well, I mean, there's lots of other ways out there to get information. You know, we suggest from time to time. And who was I. I was telling somebody about this the last couple days, just gts it. Right.

But. Or Google that stuff or, you know, but anyway. But is that experienced? Is it accurate? Do you get elaboration of thought in that realm? Right.

Yep.

We're going to jump onto that in just a minute. But I want to add one other thing that I picked up from an agent last week in our conversation about that analog data recorder.

And that analog data recording device that you just mentioned, AKA the pencil. There's a reason they have an eraser on pencils, right? Yes, that agent said that, and I wrote it down. There's a reason they have erasers on pencils. But let's talk about that for just a minute before we go on to taking this deeper. So what about people that are techy and they write notes electronically? They don't necessarily use any kind of writing device.

What's the thought there, Mike?

Yes. Thank you for positioning that, because I happen to have a leader who sends me something every single Sunday to keep us all on track. And I print it out, and it sits right here. So that I know exactly what you're working on, what our entire team is working on and what we are all focused on. And it's, it's digitally. I can make my notes with my analog recorder, but I get it from you, but printed out. If you, if it's on your screen, as soon as you turn off that screen, it's gone. Keep it in front of your face.

Aha. And. And it's not everything. It's not like we're looking to, you know, diminish the tree population out there. But certain things are critically important. Is that accurate?

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So learning something from you, Mike. I told you a couple weeks ago, I said, mike, I put three words on my mirror and thank you so much because I got the idea from you. I put the words action or excuse that my, my morning mirror of truth says, what are you going to do today? Take action. You're going to make an excuse. I don't like excuses.

Well, they're like certain bodily parts and they all stink. And everybody's got one, right?

Yep.

So anyway, back to the family show that we're leading here. So with that being said, so you said the number one reason that agents may not be achieving or exceeding the goals that they set out to achieve is they're not inking it. And by the way, I'm sure you picked this up. I think we've talked about this already, but if not, we'll just share it with the nation here.

Don't think it, ink it. Because when you ink it, you sink it, right?

Yep.

And that's S, Y, N, C.

And, and there's a physical thing about our bottle bodies here that goes right up your arm to your brain. I'm sure it never happened to you, but my parents asked me to write multiple times. I will not lie, I will obey, etc. Etc. Anyway, I got the picture after a while.

Yep.

So yeah, don't think it ink it because that will sink it. So they're not writing it down. They're not. What about reading their goals? How often are you finding that people are actually looking at their goals in the trenches?

Well, it depends on the, the level of achieve. High achieving agent that they want to be, Mike. The ones that are high achieving, they're looking at it when they're doing their weekly planning system, they're looking at it when they're making sure that they have laid out their day and blocked their time. If they have a morning routine that is dedicated and set up, they're looking at it every morning. And then There are some that maybe look at it the day before they have a meeting with me and I say, hey, here's your goal sheet. What have you gotten accomplished? And they look at it that day.

Before and, and even so are there agents who, you know, they haven't updated them in a number of months. They may not be looking at them. But is that a direct relation to their achievement levels?

Absolutely, Mike. It's one of, just like one of the things you said. The people that are the most successful, the ones that are showing up for every single call, every single meeting, every single training, they're always there, they're always showing up. Showing up is how, what would you say percentage of success that is, Mike? Just showing up?

It's. Well, I learned from Woody Allen years ago at least 86% of all success is showing up. I will suggest in today's world that it's higher than that. It might be as high as 97% of all success is showing up.

Wow. So just showing up, they'd be top 3% agents.

Well, you know why?

Many, many reasons. But the biggest reason that just came to my mind, and I'm sure you this happens to you all the time. I mean whether it be our all team meetings, our team huddles or anything we have going on in Mastermind and you know, sessions with agents, boot camp, all up Mastermind, the whole whole nine yards.

Joel, talk about this for a minute. But sometimes it's that one idea.

Just.

That one big idea that could change everything.

I had it happen on an emergency session with a high achieving age platinum agent last week. I'll go into that in a minute. But so you know, if you don't show up and you're not present.

You can't get that gold nugget if you will. Right, exactly. Change everything. Big door, swinging, little hinges.

Yep.

I, yeah, that. I mean that's awesome, Mike, because I cannot count the number of sticky notes that I have all around my desk. And it's from aha's that I've gotten from coaching members that I've gotten from you, that I've gotten from our team. And I throw them up there because I'm like, I, I can't forget this. And they're different colored sticky notes even because they have different meanings. You know, the red ones are urgent and. But. Yeah, exactly. And it's. They're not going to get that if they're not showing up.

That's right. And, and when you get that one big idea that can change everything and you actually take.

It'S on the post and under your mirror. Three. Three words, right?

Yeah. Action or excuse?

Action. And you take action. That's when everything will start happening for you.

I mean, to case in point for everybody here, one of our super high achieving agents who I just observed that they're going to be presenting in the implementer of the year session because I saw their submission come through. This high achieving agent has done phenomenal stuff, but the one big idea, because she showed up a number of years ago was client segmentation.

And it's amazing to me, Mike, how many of this that. The simple blueprint. The simple blueprint. It's amazing how many of the ideas you put out for people that they, that they haven't done yet. I can't, I can't believe it. Client segmentation. Why would you be spending, investing so much into your, into your bottom 80% of clients that are draining your time when you could be giving to your top 20% that you're not. That they're not even contacting? Maybe.

Are you suggesting that if they have a top 20% that they might be hanging around other top 20% mindset people which they could be referral partners into the agency?

Wasn't it something referring. No. Love, trust. Something you kind of teach about a lot, Mike?

Yeah, you talk about that a lot in the trenches as well. People refer and do business with people.

They know, love and trust and if they're doing business with you, they already know love and trust you.

Exactly. And they pay their bills, they don't bother you when you need something, they respond quickly with a good attitude, etc. Etc. And they don't have claims.

Something about there's a measure of yardage and there's full of diamonds and it's right at your feet.

Acre of diamonds.

There it is.

That's it. I don't have my diamond up here with me. It's in my travel bag because I get to go help agents this week.

But anyway, I think it's full of opportunities. It has to be more than an acre. I believe that our Platinum coaching members have way more than an acre. That they're mining.

Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of opportunities.

Yep.

But I mean let's, let's say this with all due respect. Right.

And all, all the love and I heart for people. A lot of them are too busy playing on social media.

Or putting out the small fires.

Exactly, exactly. So let's get back. What's the number one reason agents.

What'S preventing. What's the number one Thing that's preventing agents from achieving their goals. So, first of all, having goals. Secondly, having goals that are documented. Third, having goals that they're reviewing often. I mean, my weekly rhythm register prompts me to review our plan four times a week. Okay. And you've got it printed out so you don't think about it, you ink about it so you can sink it. You don't think it, you ink it so you can sink it. If there's one more thing that we want to share today.

You know what's on these goals, right? A lot of times. You know the super complicated business plan? Have you heard about it?

I have. Get clients, keep clients.

Wait a minute. Isn't it more detailed than that?

Nope, that's all there is to it.

You mean it's just get clients, keep clients.

Wow.

That's simple. How could people are doing more of that, then?

You can't hit unidentified targets, right?

That's the excuse, Mike.

Aha. Okay. So the other thing is they're not aware of their current situation because they're not consistently.

Consistently with focus and discipline. C plus, F plus. D.

Identifying where they're at. And the other thing that you find, people also haven't looked at a certain document that we give them as part of their membership. Super simple.

They don't lie.

Never.

What does it lie?

The numbers don't. Mike, you put up a picture of one of your grandkids that said, look at the scoreboard.

Yes.

Look at the scoreboard. What are. What are your numbers?

So back to rowing in the same direction, which is what you receive as part of our Sunday planning. There's three documents attached to that email. One of them is what?

The tangible desires list.

And what else?

Our vision organizer.

And what else?

Oh, let's. Oh, oh, let's see. Our. Our scorecard. Oh, yeah, our scorecard. Yeah, that's on there. Those three.

There's the case in point. Friends, thank you for your transparency and your candor. We need to hear it at least seven times, if not welching it.

So anyway, I prefer welching it because sometimes it takes me more than seven. Mike.

Yeah, yeah. So anyway, with that being said, numbers don't lie. And so we also find a lot of agents, Right. They're not keeping this puppy up to date and looking at it very often.

Meaning what?

Their numbers don't lie sheet.

Right. Yeah, they're not. They're not keeping up to date with it. You've said it. They need to be checking their numbers at least once a month. And that's if they're doing the bare minimum, which we know none of. None of our platinum coaching members are doing the bare minimum.

Right, exactly. But it, it's really contrib, it's supporting, and it's a cousin partner, if you will, to your goals as it relates to the super complicated business plan. Get clients.

Keep clients, keep clients. Right. And you know, on the numbers don't lie sheet, it's not complicated. It's only, you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 quadrants. Ah, back to seven. Right.

Well, Mike, in with that. There's something, you know, like a lot of brand new people that sign up that say, you know what, I don't want to live in the bottom 90% of agencies anymore. When they first sign up, one of the first goals they ever put on their goal sheet is 1 million new written premium. Because honestly, Mike, what goals do they need to be putting down? How do they identify what measurable things can I put into my agency that are going to help me to get to the up life? And honestly, that's where the value of sitting down and doing their coaching sessions with you comes from, is to identify, all right, what does my agency look like? Oh, these are the goals that I should be putting down because they don't know what they don't know a hundred percent.

None of us know what we don't know. The day we stop learning is the day we stop growing. It's really that simple. And I was told by a platinum coaching member who was here doing their private one on one consulting just a couple of days ago, said, it's just amazing to me how you can see things that I can't see.

I said, thank you for saying that, but it's a privilege and an honor to be able to partner with you. Because people from the outside don't have the law of familiarity going on. It's the same for you, right?

Yep. And Mike, with that, with them invest when that with them spending that time. I thought of something the other day and it was like, you always talk about investing in yourself, but Mike, I had an add on thought to that. If you're not investing in yourself, you know what you're investing in?

What are you investing in?

Your competition.

Aha.

That came to me and I was like, you know what, I have to share this with Mike because if you're not investing in yourself, you're investing in your competition.

Wow, that's awesome. Absolutely. Or, you know, I've kind of got a new mindset on competition. Have I shared that with you yet? Please do rivals.

It's a different kind of mentality. I mean, it's okay to have a friendly rival in your town as an example.

Right, right.

It's, it's not that because, I mean, we've all been somewhere and we're all going somewhere. Got that from Earl Nightingale. But you know, at the end of the day, we're all going to have our day. We're only here for a certain period of time. So it's, it's a good thing to have a strong rivalry. I mean, talk about college football as an example.

Right, right.

That's going on right now.

Okay.

It's good to have a good, strong rivalry. It makes us better.

We up our game because we have a good, strong rivalry. Let's get back to the numbers don't lie. So the seven quadrants, people might be either watching or listening to this, wondering, what are they?

Should we tell them today only?

Today only. Good. Oh, do you recommend that they ink.

It.

If they want to sync it.

Aha. So yes, I'll take that as a yes. Okay. For owners annual revenue, or if it's for your team facing premium volume, team members, think about premium owners, think about revenue. That's number one. Number two, number of in force clients.

Number three, number of in force policies. Because that determines your ppc.

Right, Right.

And the big kahuna that Everybody's after is 3.3.0. Right, right. Or yeah, three policies per client.

Always room for cross selling.

I mean, you know, I was speaking at an event in the last couple days and I ask a lot of questions in the room and I encourage people to raise their hand. By the way, back to client segmentation for a minute, I said to the people in that room, how many people have their clients segmented or they've tiered their clients just by show of hands? Out of probably 200 people, guess how many people had their hand in the air?

40.

About 2. 2 to 5. Now, there's always a handful that aren't going to raise their hand no matter what you say, but very few hands were in the air. In addition to that, I asked the same question about how many agencies have three policies per client just by a show of hands.

That I remember, there was one hand in the air.

Back to the acre of diamonds.

Right.

So number three is enforced policies. Number four is your retention. Your retention, whether it be by client or by policy, depending on your agency management system. Right, Right. Okay. Number five, number of annual referrals.

Back to that AAA situation. Right. If you've identified who your AAA's are through client segmentation or your A clients, B clients, C clients, that kind of thing.

By the way, I had an agent say to me recently, they say we have A clients, B clients and C clients and Y clients.

Have you heard that yet?

Why are they still our clients?

Exactly. So you have heard it. I hadn't heard that. So that was funny. But anyway, so back to the A client or the AAA clients. Maybe the same thing. That's who you want referring business to you.

And people should have a formalized systematic referral program. Right? Right.

Yeah.

And so number six, number of team members.

And you quickly divide that by your revenue and you have your revenue per team member. Part time employees are a half. If you have two part time employees, that's one full team member. And you divide the number of full time team members and that includes the owner. The owner's active, they're a warm body, they count as one.

Right, right.

So. And you know that's, that's the ultimate measuring tool for a high performing agency in today's world. And lastly.

The breakdown of business. Right, right. Yeah. Percentage of commercial versus personal versus life and health. You know, just a quick percentage. Are you say 60% personal, 30% commercial, 10% life and health. Great. Because they're all different kind of mindset markets. Right, Right. And I've heard you talking about this in our sessions as well. Psychographics, demographics and geographics. That's a whole another conversation in the client avatar.

Right?

Yeah. So great stuff. So let's just recap for everybody as we begin to wrap up today. The number one thing that's preventing agents from achieving their goals is right there.

Just write it down. Write it down and have it in front of you all the time.

Inking it.

So it can sync it.

They make erasable pens, Mike.

That's true too. But don't think it. Ink it so you can sync it. One to reviewing the goals. Is that important?

Yep. You have to see it all of the time.

How often is all of the time.

Welch it for yourself until it sticks. Until it's there all the time.

How often?

Daily, if possible.

Exactly. Couldn't agree with you more. Updating the goals.

You have to update your goals with your team, with yourself.

Oh, we didn't even get down that road. Let's just touch that very quickly. How often should people share their goals with their team?

Anytime they change.

Okay.

And you have to remind your team of them at every single team meeting. This is what we're doing, team. This is where we're. This is where we're growing.

There we go. Let's grow. Right. But you know, and I remember back when we really were at our most cohesive team unit phase in our team meetings we had that numbers meeting once a month.

Okay.

Okay. So yes, make sure you share your goals with the team, especially when they change.

Right, Right.

Lastly, it's critical that people know what you have to know your numbers to know your numbers.

And don't guess.

Thank you.

Or just assume that you know what it is. Get in your systems, make sure your data is clean, make sure it's accurate, get it written down so you have accurate information to to plan your business off of.

100% agree. You mean Ben Franklin is alive again?

Oh, he is. If you're planning to failure. If you're failing to plan, you're Planning to fail.

100 agree. If you're failing to plan, you're planning to fail. So you got to get up and do the work. And you know, you as a leader of an organization, people are silently waiting to be led.

Yes.

So you've got to do the pre work to be able to properly lead them.

Joel McKinley, this is a great session. I'm looking forward to doing this more often. So we'll be looking for opportunities, gold nuggets and other strategies that will help you grow your business, create wealth so you can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. From the trenches. From the top 3% of agents in America. Joel McKinley. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike.

You're welcome. All right everybody, thank you for joining us today for this brand new episode format and if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromson. I'm widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can find out more atunstoppable profit producer.com and if you're interested in attending one of our virtual live trainings, please go to upfaststart.com and and if you want to attend one of our live in person trainings, which is where it all changes for the better. Go to be unstoppable boot camp.com both of these events are designed to share with you our best money making strategies developed over 35 years in the trenches 100% of the time as a proud independent insurance agent. That's my history and we're bringing it all to you so we can help you grow your agency, create wealth so you can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. And again, if this is one of your this is your first time on the podcast or if you haven't yet, go up to the top and make sure you subscribe. Go to unstoppable profit podcast.com go up to the top, hit subscribe. And you want to. You won't. You're not going to want to miss one episode of the podcast where we're sharing these gold nuggets and we're out there on all the channels on the podcast streams, Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, our YouTube channel. And I recently noticed we're on Amazon as well. So we're out there. Just go there and you can start @unstoppable profit podcast.com Joel McKinley, thank you.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you everybody for joining us. And until next time, get out there, make a difference, be unstoppable, leave no regrets. Just like, whoops, can't see it. Let me get out of the way and finish this right, just like it says on the conference table, everybody. Have a great day, everybody. We'll see you next time.

Can't get enough of the Unstoppable Profit podcast. Come join our next live three day boot camp in warm, beautiful San Diego. Invest in your ticket today at the Unstoppable Boot Camp. Com, that's beunstoppablebootcamp.

Com.