Episode 211: 8 to 1 ROI First Year

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 another episode of the Unstoppable Prophet podcast. I'm bringing this very special podcast today because. Because so many people continually ask me about this subject.

It's due to the fact that I've played in the sandbox for more than 20 years in the trenches in an independent insurance agency business. And it on average returned an ROI return on investment of approximately 8 to 1. Since I know you likely like those numbers, just like I love those numbers, meaning 8 to 1. And being in the independent insurance agency business, that's first year revenue only. And then I get super excited about the fact that lifetime value, omg, we're going to keep our clients at least seven to eight years. Well beyond that, if you implement the client nurturing system that we teach.

And it's, it's so awesome. So I want to share with you today the latest on formalized systematic referral programs. I'm going to give you just a sneak peek inside of what goes on inside of a referral program that we help people design for their agency. So with that being said, let's get started. But let me tell you why, Let me tell you why it's so easy to earn and generate more referrals. And don't forget everything you would ever want. And if you're watching this podcast versus listening to it, you're seeing exactly what I have in my hand right now. And if you're listening to this only, just go to YouTube, search Unstoppable Profit producer, click on videos, and all of our podcasts are right there. So find this podcast. This is your acre of diamonds. Everything you would ever want, everything would ever want to grow your business is right beneath you in your own acre of diamonds. I've learned in my study over the years that everybody knows to approximately 250 people, that we either come to the wedding or come to their funeral. But let's get conservative, let's make it easier. Let's say it's 100, okay? So you can see if you're watching this, that there's 800 clients, right? Eight. Let's say, hypothetically, you have 800 clients. And if those 800 clients know a hundred people each.

That's 80,000 opportunities for you. 80,000. What more is it that you want?

That's why it's important to have a systematic client nurturing program, to have a systematic back end analytics program that monitors everything going on with the temperature with your clients. That's why it's so vitally important to have a formalized systematic referral program. So get something to write with, get something to write on. Don't think it, ink it on. What I'm going to share with you right here so you can get started. And the great news is you can do this starting right now, starting today, starting right here, just with the tips that I'm going to give you. Get started thinking about it's not going to do it, talking about it's not going to do it, only action. It will lead to your next win and sometimes your next lesson. But that's okay. Those learning moments are so vitally important to your progress and your future achievement. So number one, you've got to think of a theme. So think of a theme for your referral program. More recently, we used the Stromso Cares Referral Rewards Program. Insert your agency name. Cares Referral Rewards Program. Why? Because no one cares how much you know until they know you care. So let them know you care. What do you care about? You care about your clients, you care about your communities, you care about other people, you care about the charitable organizations and the charity spotlights that you're going to support with your referral program and so much more. So the 2023 Stromso Cares referral Rewards Program, There's a sample name for you, and at the end of the day, you can name it whatever you want, but you've got to name it something that matches the mindset of the marketplace that you're trying to penetrate. It can't just be all about you. It's never about you. It needs to be all about them. Okay, next, you need to understand.

Why people refer you. It's critically important that you're very, very clear on this. You might want to collaborate with your team, you might want to get their opinion, you might want to brainstorm about it. And once properly identified and documented, you must make sure that you train your team on this. They must be just as crystal clear as you are on this. So we throw around in our circles and we learn this from an incredible individual that we trained under for a number of years. Everybody, people need to hear things at least seven times before it sinks into the upper calculator. Meaning your mind. Okay? So continually train, continually train, continually train. And I remember a quote from the late great Zig Ziglar. The only thing worse than training a team member and losing them is keeping a team member and not training them. Train your team consistently. Here's some thoughts to fuel your energy on some of the characteristics in a high performing agency that the team members possess. And this is to let you know to train your team on their responses on why people should refer you. You're quick to respond. You have agency standards to respond and you're always quick to respond normally, same day or definitely within 24 business hours. 1, 2. Efficiency is part of our agency standards. We are efficient and timely and we get back to you right away. In fact, we have portals where you can get your own ID cards and your own certificates. 24 7, 365. We offer solid agency communication and we consistently keep in touch with you. We do check in contacts at least once a year and so much more. We always keep the best interest of you, our customer and our communities in mind. We educate people. We have multiple ways of educating all of the people that we serve. We give back to our communities through our charitable contributions, our charity spotlights which are also associated with our referral program. And we offer coverage and options to best protect people and we explain to people why it's important and most importantly, we protect people's assets and we protect people and everything they work so hard for, bringing them the best value for their insurance. Dollar and of course you can add on to this list your own items, but you want to create a list, a solid list of valuable agency attributes. Okay, and the other one to add on? We are an independent insurance agency. We offer you many options. We're not beholden to any one insurance company. We work for you, the customer first to bring you the best value for your insurance. $. I've said that a few times over the years. That's one of my favorite go to phrases that I've learned over the years. And that's why I for so many years, 35 plus years to be proud. I am a proud independent insurance agent and I love that. I love the fact that I work for the customer first to bring them the options. Okay? So that's number two. Why should people refer you get very, very clear on that. Next three things that are critical, absolutely critical to your agency's success with your formalized systematic referral program. 1. Every team member must ask for a referral and everyone, every communication, every team member must ask for a referral in every communication, whether it be on the phone. And remember, every phone calls an opportunity for.

Something. Every phone calls an opportunity for something. Yes. To ask for a referral. Yes. To serve people. Yes. To convert them into a certain mindset and, and to view things in the right way that's best for them in their insurance program. Okay. Every phone calls opportunity. So every email is an opportunity. Every text message is an opportunity. Every communication is an opportunity. So make sure that you have your formalized systematic referral program dialed in with your unique link. I'm going to get to that in just a couple of minutes. Okay, next, you must earn the right to be referred to. And I, for seven, eight years minimum, I was constantly sharing with my team, motivating my team, inspiring my team as to why we must continue to earn referrals. Ask yes. But we must continue to earn referrals in every single interaction with people all of the time. And that's important. Asking, yes. Earning, yes. But then a few years ago, it really hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought, this is the reason that people refer us because I asked for feedback from our clients, from our communities, from our charitable spotlight partners and everything else. Why do people refer us? And because of all the feedback they told me, they said, mike, we don't refer you for the, the cool stuff that you do for us. The charitable contributions you make are fantastic. But the number one reason that we refer you, hundreds of referrals of every year. By the way, Our referral numbers 4 to 500 referrals every single year. And people said the reason we refer you is because you deliver. You deliver. You deliver. You deliver on the promise of excellent customer service. You deliver the prom on the promise of getting things done right the first time. You deliver on the promise of providing the right protection for people. You deliver on the promise of working for the customer first, just like you say as an independent insurance agency. And you deliver on the promise of giving them all the options when you deliver on that. So that's the key. You must deliver, you must ask. Yes, you must earn. But most importantly, you've got to deliver as promised and every single time. And how's that supported once the referrals start coming in? We have a six step referral checklist, including calling the referring party every single time, even if it's somebody that refers us. A lot of business endeavoring to call the referring party every single time. Now I get a lot of questions from people, well, what if we've got mortgage loan officers as an example who send Us a lot of leads every month. Okay, fine. If they're sending you 15 leads a month, calling 15 times, that might be a bit much. Make a decision. Just call them once or twice a month. Thanking them. Thanking them and showing gratitude. The attitude of gratitude always wins. Okay, so here's some key components. Those six step referral checklist is something that we required. All of the steps on the checklist were required to be done in the agency business. And I'm not going to go over all six steps. But it starts with that attitude of gratitude and sharing with them how the charitable component of our referral program would work. Thanking them for their referral, letting them know that a charitable contribution in their name is going to be made to our charitable spotlight of the month, Charitable Spotlight of the quarter, whatever that is. But that is a key component. That is the reason. Now let me share with you also that whether you choose to do a charitable spotlight component or you choose to give them a reward or do both, it's really up to you. And I will tell you from the trenches in upp, because we work with agents all over the country.

It'S different as far as how the marketplace responds all over the country. I've got agents in the Northeast who say people like the rewards and that's what garners more referrals. I've got agents in other areas of the country say it's the charitable, charitable spotlights that people respond to. So it's different. My 10,000 foot, 15,000 foot level for you. As marketers, we test. As marketers, we test. So the best way to find out the answer is to test. You've got to test. As marketers, we test. So you got to keep testing. You got to keep testing. All right, let's get back to it. Strategies and tactics that must be in place for a completely operating, formalized, systematic referral program.

When it starts, but with a flyer, both digitally and hard copy, that must be distributed every way, every time, with every communication. Secondly, a URL for your referral program, a separate URL that you can text, that you can email, that you can verbally communicate every single time, and that houses everything that's going on with your referral program. It's a redirect to a backend page on your existing website. Don't set up a new website. It's a backend redirect to your existing website. Things like, you know, refer ki.com refer ki.com that's an insurance agency that we work with. And you can, you can go there, you can See everything going on. It's a shortened URL refer ki. Refer ki, that's Kimball Insurance. Refer ki dot com. You can just go there. You can see everything that's going on. There's a place where people can input information, et cetera, et cetera. So that's one opportunity as well. This is where everything that's happening, including pictures, videos, photos of you out there with the charitable partners, everything is going on. And most importantly, I'm going to share with you today the one thing, the one thing that it's constantly amazing to me that people are missing. Whatever you do, all of the referrals that are coming in, please, please, please, please, please create your rock solid list of people that refer you. Why? Because at the beginning of every year, normally, sometimes before you go home for Thanksgiving, you're going to an or early December, you're going to announce the referral program for the coming year and, and you're going to send that announcement where you're going to send it to that list.

So vitally important, we have a strategy that we teach called FOMO cards to constantly keep in touch to let people know about what, everything that's going on with your referral program. Yes, FOMO cards. Fear of missing out. Everybody's always got the fear of missing out. You're not leaving anybody out. You're letting everybody know. So vitally important. Next, if you're going to do a charitable component. We found the greatest, the greatest success with charity spotlight components. Now, we had a developed.

Marketing department in our agency business that had multiple people working in it that was led by the CMO chief marketing officer who had lots of experience in this realm. So for us, it was a little bit easier to do a charitable spotlight every month, but we did. And so we would go out to the charity, we would get pictures, we would let them know what we're doing, etc. Etc. The local news station got wind of this and they saw everything that we're doing through our social media and everything else. They called us up and they said, hey, we notice you're doing so much for the community. You do a charity spotlight as part of your referral program. We would like to bring you in and interview you on the news, on the news, and do a segment on community giving and we'd like to use you as the spotlight. Everyone thought, oh, okay, twist our arm, we'll do it. And the good news for me, one of our leadership team members did it. I wasn't even involved. They did a fantastic job. So by doing it and giving by doing it and giving first without an expectation of something in return resulted in that. Okay, so what we did is we determined an amount of giving for every referral. Back in the day, that was probably 2020 or 2021. We just decided we're going to do 20 for every referral or $21 for every referral. And then we paid them at the end of the month and it created a much bigger check. So it was awesome, awesome stuff. Get yourself a big check, go out there and take pictures with them showing the big check, etc. Etc. Create a rock solid email signature that includes your charitable component and pictures and everything else for every team member. Let them create it for them, give it to them and say, this is the one we're using for this month. Again announced the program early in December. We've done Publishers Clearinghouse Grand Prize awards over the years. We arrive at people's doorstep on Saturday morning with the camera, the balloons, the whole nine yards. I've done one in a Starbucks on a Friday morning full of people. It doesn't get much better. It's absolutely incredible. Get pictures, get videos, anything and everything that you can do to support, to promote, to show what you're doing in your referral program. And most importantly, let me remind you, this is so vitally important, so vitally important.

The number one reason that people don't achieve what they want to personally or they don't achieve what they want to in business.

It's just one thing, lack of consistency. Lack of consistency. You've got to be firing on all cylinders. All things in your referral program all of the time is so vitally important and there's so much more to it. I mean, I could go on for hours about our referral program and what we built over the years. I hope these tips that I've given you today will get you started. It's just the starter point for you in your formalized systematic referral program for your agency. But know this. Know this crystal clear. Only one thing's going to get you down the road with this. And yes, it's action. And recently in our Niches to Riches program, which, by the way, was absolutely phenomenal. One of the faculty teachers shared a thought process and we were still laughing about this and still sharing it as well.

The bottom line is this. And he said he learned this from one of his own personal development trainings as well. He said, you've got 72 hours. You only have 72 hours. And what he meant by that, that is this. If you don't implement an idea within the first 72 hours after you learn it, it will likely never get done. So friends, you've got 72 hours. That's it. If you just got one idea from this podcast, please implement it within the next 72 hours or sooner. So you too can get the next win or get to the next lesson, which is part of your progress. I hope this podcast has helped you. Like I said, we've been doing referral programs for more than 20 years. Eight to one ROI when done right. And that's just one of the number of things that we help people do right in the Unstoppable Profit Producer program. So getting results for agents is what we do. I hope this has helped you. And 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 learn more about myself and what we do atunstoppable profit producer.com and if you're interested in learning more about one of our live events or one of our virtual events, our virtual event portal is up fast start.com and of course our live event portal is be unstoppable boot camp.com all of our events are designed with some of our best money making strategies developed over 35 years of research in your industry, designed to help you grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. And if you liked what you heard in this podcast, please share it anytime. By the way, if you liked what you heard, please share our URL so you can introduce the podcast to other people. It's unstoppable profit podcast.com that's unstoppable prophet podcast.com share that with your friends or anybody else that you care about that you want to to join on the learning journey and make sure on the link that they go up to the top and click subscribe so none of you miss one valuable insight because it just takes that one idea and how quickly do you have to implement it? You've only got 72 hours. That's it. So we hope that you'll continue to join us and we're out also out there on all of the portals. You can find us out there on Apple Podcast, Spotify stitcher on our YouTube channel. Like I mentioned earlier, go to YouTube search Unstoppable Profit producer.com click on videos right. So thank you for joining us. We hope you got great value and if you picked up that one gold nugget or anything that you learned on the podcast today, please go to the comments below. Share what you learned. Share in the comments below so you can continue to help others learn, grow and become more. Thanks so much for joining us today. I will see you in the next episode and until then, you got this. I believe in you. We'll see you in the next episode.

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