Episode 190: Your Numbers Tell the Truth

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. I'm bringing you this very special podcast right now, today for a specific reason, because we are heading into a new year of opportunity. And it is common, all too common, that many, many times when I talk to agents all over North America about this subject, that they don't have the answers. They don't have the answers off the top of their head. They don't have the answers on the sheet that we provide to them. They don't have the answers in any of their business documents. And it hurts my heart for them. And I'm going to go off on a path related to this subject. But before we get done on this podcast, because all we want is your higher achievement, your massive success. But here's the bottom line, if I may be so direct, and if I may not, I'm going to do it anyway. You've got to want it for yourself. The only thing, the only thing that stands between you and everything you want in this world.

Is you.

The mirror of truth. So allow us to please help you. Because what we want is your higher achievement. You blowing away your goals.

And having the opportunity to grow your business, create wealth so you could, you can too, have the freedom to live life on your own terms. That is why we pour our hearts and our souls into these efforts. I was sitting on the wife, on the couch with my wife last night. We were looking at trips all over the world.

We were able to do that and we want you to be able to do that too. So make sure that you've got the blocking and the tackling in place consistently all the time. C +F +D equals your higher achievement equals your success and everything beyond it, including mastery of some things. And remember.

Consistent and con mastery comes from consistent and constant remastery. You've got the plan, you got to practice, you've got to rinse and repeat all of the time. And the subject matter that I'm talking about today that we're going to dive into is numbers. Numbers don't lie. They tell the truth. Every single time. And many times, as I'm talking To agents all over North America. They're not happy with their numbers. They're not happy with a lot of things about their agency business. But that's what we move to do. We, we move to help them with that, to make it better, to make it more progressive, probably to change a number of things that are going to make that change happen. I'm thinking of a coaching call this last week. This agent wanted to know, I've got one of my offices. When I'm there, everything's fine. When I leave, it's not fine.

I want to know how I can update the culture so it's fine all the time. I said, let's talk about the people in that culture before we even think about updating the culture. And it turned out that it was a person in the culture that was the issue. If you don't like the numbers on your Numbers don't lie sheet, many times it's the things contributing to that, right? So I want to share with you today, Please know your numbers. Please get your numbers together consistently. And you should know these things off the top of your head. It's got to become a part of your daily habits. Hashtag daily habits. You've got to be in the daily habit of knowing your numbers all of the time. I mean, I think back to our son, our grandson Nate. He used to come over the house. He had a shirt, it was lime green. And he came over one time. I said, nate, I love that shirt. Where'd you get that? He goes, my mom got it for me. I said, no. The fact that what it says, Nate said, check the scoreboard. Numbers don't lie. So what is your, your scoreboard about? Your business reveal?

Does it tell the truth that you're proud of, that you want to hear? So I'm going to go down the Numbers don't lie sheet, or sometimes called your KPIs. Many people call it different things. We call it in upp. In our UPP circles, numbers don't lie. But it's your key performance indicators. Likely the same thing. These items on the Numbers don't lie sheet, you should know all of the time. And if you don't, you need to find a way to get the person who's in charge of it charge of it in your business to get it to you consistently. Or you need to know how to get it yourself consistently. But you need to have your finger on that pulse all of the time. So vitally important. Okay, first, your annual agency revenue. Your annual agency revenue. You've got to be Aware of what that is. And do you have a historical trail of what it's been for the last three to five years on a singular Excel sheet? If you don't, you should. You need to understand what your revenue is, not your premium. Owners think in terms of revenue. Team members think in terms of premium. Know that what is your annual agency revenue. Your commissions that you deposit in the bank. You cannot deposit premium in the bank. You deposit revenue in the bank. Know what it is. You've got to be aware. Number two, your premium, you need to know what that is too. Your annual agency premium. Same thought process. Do you have the historicals? Why is it important to know that? Well, many, many times we help agency owners set goals. Yes, goals for the coming year based on production. Many times those production goals are based on premium because that's what team members think about, not revenue. Okay? So you need to be aware of what it is. So if Your premium is 5 million and you want to get it to 6, then 6 in the coming year, you go back and re engineer it. Divided by 12. That becomes your monthly goal for the coming year for new business production.

Annual agency premium. So annual agency revenue number one. Number two. Annual agency premium, number three. Number of inflation. Force clients, you need to know. And I'm going to get to the reason in just a minute. Number of in force clients. Live clients that have at least one. Enforce policy with your agency. You need to know. Number two. Number of in force policies. Number of in force policies in your agency. It is so common that when agencies raise their hand and contact us to collaborate about UP and the UP opportunity to be in platinum or elite coaching and they fill out one of these documents, it is very common that we find their policy count per client, which is simply taking the number of policies and dividing it by the number of clients. It's not rocket science, my friends. That is 1.75 policies per client or less. I say that's where we're going to start. Your acre of diamonds. They already trust you. They already have at least one policy or more in effect with your agency right now. They trust you. Why don't they have every conceivable policy in effect with your agency? Why? Why, why? Why? Haven't you earned it? Have you asked for it? Have you earned the right to be the one that they. We found this in all in our all UPP mastermind at the most recent boot camp.

Are you the one they love the most and are you willing to ask them that question? All right, I'll expand on that. This happened in all UPB Mastermind, our incredible speaker at Mastermind position the entire group with a question. Let's say you have. We'll just take it an easy example. Let's say you have an auto policy for your client, but you don't have the home. Okay. So you contact your auto only client and say, hey, I just was checking in to make sure that we are providing excellent service to you and to see if you have any questions about your insurance program with us. And you start the dialogue and you say, well, I notice we've got a gap in your insurance program with us. By the way, that's the way I like to position it. I notice you have a gap in your insurance program with us. I see we have your auto insurance, but we don't have a home policy. So I wanted to talk about getting that in place for you today. Well, I don't need that. I've got it somewhere else. Okay. Oh, I understand. I'm going to also ask you to make a decision today because it's super important that you have your auto and your home insurance with the same company. And I'm going to ask you to decide who you love more. And whoever you love more, I'm going to ask you place all of your policies with that agent. Okay. So do you love everything you receive from our agency? I do. Great. Do you love everything that you receive from your home insurance agents agency? Yeah, they're pretty good. Okay, again, I'm going to ask you to choose. Who do you love more, us or them? And whoever that is, if it's them, you can take your auto insurance and place it there. That's a bold move. Are you willing to do so? I asked. There was about, I don't know, 60 plus agents in the room. I asked for a show of hands. How many people are going to do that? When they got back, there weren't too many hands in the air. It's a bold move, but are you doing a good enough job to get that uptick? Policies per client. Let's say it's 1.60 to move it towards 2. That's the thinking. That's the entrepreneurial high achievement thinking that everybody should be using on a daily basis. Back to the daily habits. Right. Annual Agency revenue number one. 2. Annual agency premium 3. Number of enforced clients. 4. Number of enforce policies number 5. Retention percentage. Retention percentage. You should know that hard and fast all of the time. And, and you should be looking to improve that all of the time. It's your wealth, it's Your gold in your agency business. Now normally it's one of two ways that retention is measured in an agency. It's either by client retention percentage or policy retention percentage. Just measure it. One way to start and get really really good. Good at it.

Do it. One way to start and get really really good at it. Retention percentage by client or retention percentage by policy. Next. Number of annual referrals. Number of annual referrals. All too often when I have people fill this sheet out when they raise their hand to join one of our programs. Number of annual referrals. It has a question mark in the box. I'm going, you don't know how many referrals you receive a year. What a huge opportunity that is. Why? Because it's your best source of new business and it's the best type of new business. And everybody in your book, let's just take number of enforced clients. Let's say you have 800 in force clients. Every one of them know at least 100 other people that are going to come to their wedding or come to their funeral. So that 800 clients, that sphere of influence is 80,000 people that you could potentially do business with. What more is it that you want? That's where the referrals comes into play and is so strong.

Next. Number of full time employees.

Or and or number of part time employees. Why? It goes right back up to the annual agency revenue. You need to have that in alignment. It's got to be a high enough number or you don't have a viable, highly attractive insurance agency business. And if you think you're going to get out at any point in time in the future and your numbers aren't in alignment and they are lying, they're going to be able to figure it out. They're going to do their due diligence and they're going to uncover your secrets. And it ain't going to be worth even close to what you think it is, whether it be 5, 10, 20 years down the road. That's why this numbers don't lie sheet is so vitally important. Please. All I want is your higher achievement and success. And next, the percentage of business, commercial insurance versus personal insurance versus health insurance, individual group versus life insurance. So you should know that percentage breakdown just like that all of the time. You can do it on a revenue basis or premium basis. It does not matter. I recommend revenue basis. But know it, know it. And if you're filling out an email application every single year, bing bing, bing, bing, bing, you should have that from that application right at Your fingertips. Just go back and pull the application because I know you scanned and saved a copy, right? Just go pull that, print it out and get the numbers don't lie sheet in front of you and get it filled out for yourself so you can get in the habit. The solid entrepreneurial leadership position of knowing your numbers. I'm going to do a quick recap for you. 1. Know your annual agency revenue to know your annual agency premium. 3. Know your number of in force clients. 4. Know your number of in force policies. 5. Know your retention percentage for your entire book and some super Ninja agents break it down by line of business.

Number 6. Know your number of annual referrals. Number 7. Know your number of full time employees and number of part time employees. And yes, that includes VAs because they are a cost to the business. Number eight. Know your percentage of business commercial lines versus personal lines versus life versus health. You've got to know your numbers, my friends. Vitally, vitally important. These are the heartbeat financially of your business. And you can't sell anything based on your words. They're going to ask you to prove it. Anybody will prove it. If you needed in a line of credit to really blow your business out of the water to leverage what you built, they're going to want to see your numbers.

They don't lie. And the thing that also hurts my heart a lot is when I'm speaking with agents and we're talking about numbers. If I feel it's a good idea, I will conveniently add in another question for them.

When is the last time up to what month is your profit loss statement in your balance sheet reconciled?

And sometimes that's what I hear. Nothing. I'm going, oh, don't tell me. You should have a reconciled profit loss statement and balance sheet available at your fingertips within the end of the month, in the last 60 days. Okay, so hypothetically, for at the end of August right now, you should have a reconciled profit loss statement and balance sheet to the end of June. And if you don't, shame on you. Get it together. Nobody died. We can recover. But please, it is so vitally important because that day may come. That day may come sooner than you think when I need to make some changes or whatever. Whatever. Because of a health situation, because of a car accident, car accident or any kind of accident. If you don't have your act together financially, you are not nimble. You cannot shift. You can't make decisions. Maybe an acquisition comes along. If you're not together and ready and prepared, you can't shift on a dime. And it really starts with the simplicity document the numbers don't lie statement. I hope this has helped you. I hope this has helped you. Think about if you don't have your numbers together. Look, nobody died. We're good. You can recover and move on. But please make that commitment in the coming year to be a numbers ninja, to always have your numbers together so your numbers don't lie sheet is at the top of your mindset all of the time. You will get more respect from people that you're doing business with. You will have more leverage in anything you enter into and you will be a better agency entrepreneur. And that's what we want for you to be a better agency entrepreneur. A thriving, growing, high achieving, performing agency entrepreneur. That's all we want for all of you. I hope this has helped you and we wish you all the best in the coming year. You got this. We believe in you. And if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stromso. I'm widely recognized as the leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. If you're interested in learning more about us, please go to our website, Unstoppable Profit producer.com and if you'd like to learn more about our virtual and our live events. Our virtual events, the portal is upfaststart.com and our live events is at our live event portal which is be unstoppable bootcamp.com both all all of our events are designed to share with you our best money making strategies developed over 35 years of research in our industry. All 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 go to our podcast website which is unstoppable profit podcast.com go up to the top, hit the subscribe button so you don't miss one valuable episode of our podcast. We p produce and launch it every single week for you to help you continue to grow and thrive. And you can find our podcast on all the channels out there, whether it be Spotify, Apple, Podcast, stitcher on our YouTube channel, now on Amazon, and so much more. But it all starts just go to unstoppable profit podcast.com go up to the top click subscribe so you don't miss one valuable episode. I hope this helps you. Thank you for joining us. And if this has helped you, please exercise the law of reciprocity. Share unstoppable profit podcast.com with somebody that you know and care about so they too can move towards being even more unstoppable. Thanks for joining us today. And until next time, get out there, make a difference, be unstoppable and leave no regrets. I will see you in the next episode. Take care, everybody.

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