Episode 22 : Written Guarantee

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. This podcast will give you all the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Millionaire agents and entrepreneurs think and act differently than others. This podcast will give you a simple, proven three step blueprint to grow your business. Over the past 31 years of research in your industry, Mike Stromso has created a unique philosophy called the three people process and promotion. This outside the box thinking and guidance provides agency entrepreneurs just like you the knowledge and tools you can quickly implement to explode your agency business. He has been there, done that, and he's still doing it. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or are 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 Stromso.

Hey everybody. Welcome to episode 22 of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. This is Mike Stromso coming to you live from the Living Agency Laboratory. And today we're going to be talking about.

By. Before I give you the subject matter, please get something to write with and something to write on because you're going to want to take notes about what you are going to implement. And Today, in episode 22 of the Unstoppable Profit podcast, we're going to be talking about written guarantee or any kind of guarantee, AKA risk reversal. I learned about risk reversal in last century. We'll say, okay, and I've been studying risk reversal. I've studied some of the best of the best and risk reversal and guarantees. And.

There'S nobody doing it. You know what? I would challenge you to go secret shop your competition. And when you're done secret shopping your competition. Yes, that's the strategy you should be employing. When you're done secret stopping your competition, you're going to find two things. You're going to find that they're not even close to as good as you are. But number two, I want you to ask them, can you send me a copy of your written guarantee, please?

That's exactly what you're going to get, my friends. Silence because they don't have one. So when you put yourself up to the top of the pinnacle.

By having a written risk reversal guarantee tool in your arsenal, that's just part of answering the question, why should people do business with you over and above any other options? That's just one of it. In my humble opinion. I have our current four page guarantee in my hand and I am 100% confident that I can walk into any, any meeting and close with this document in my hand and not too much else because it contains everything that I need to help people understand why they should be doing business with us over and above any and all other options. And friends, they have options. They don't need you. And I keep saying that more and more, but it's so true in the world of the Internet and the advance of everything in society, they don't need you. They can go find it somebody else somewhere else and in a heartbeat. So you've got to make sure that you are always the last call or the last email.

And so what are you doing to make sure that that's the case? You know, it started where I learned about risk reversal and how to give people the peace of mind and to help them making sure that we were the final stop. And it aided them in making a decision. So I learned how to create a simple no frills, no hidden clauses guarantee. Okay, So I remember when I created this, it was the second thing I created in my marketing journey in business. The first thing was. Yes, Social proof or testimonials. Alright, I started collecting testimonials because it doesn't matter what you say you've done for other people, it's what other people say you've already done for them. Third party social proof, absolutely critical. So once I started collecting testimonials, I put them on a sheet. Yeah, that old goldenrod paper is what I put them on. And I would put the testimonial sheets behind the quotes back in last century. And I would. Yes, that antiquated form of communication. I would fax them, okay, So I would be faxing quotes with the testimonials behind it. And then I learned about risk reversal and guarantees. And I put the guarantee behind the quotes as well. Quote, testimonials, guarantee. And I will never forget it. Immediately my hit and closing ratio went up over 31%. It was like magic. It was money growing on a tree and I had figured out how to make it happen. So it was awesome. So our original guarantee was a simple one page guarantee. And it started with something as simple as this. Friends, there's nothing unique about what's on the guarantee. It simply said if you're not happy with.

Your service from us, or if we do anything that you're not completely satisfied with, just call or write us and we'll cancel your policy and return the unused portion of the premium.

It's really that simple. We don't talk about prorate or short rate or any of These technicalities, it's not that important. But the fact of the matter that is important is we put it in writing for everybody to see. I went down to Office Depot at the time and got this very cool bordered paper that was colored in gold or red or blue. Nobody else was doing it.

Then we took ours a few steps further. You know, we had a continuing guarantee. If after the first 30 days of your relationship with us, your total and continuous satisfaction is of paramount importance to us. So if you could should change your mind for any reason thereafter, we just want you to write and tell us about it. We'll cancel your policy as of the date we receive your communication and what, refund the full amount of the unused premium to you. No questions asked. All you need to do is let us know. Then we continue on with a no pressure, no hassle promise. Our goal is to take the hassle out of buying insurance. We want to educate you on what you're buying and let you make an informed decision. Since your insurance program is such an important part of your financial well being, we want you to completely understand the coverage you have purchased and, and what it will do for you and what this means for you. Our promise is that we'll never hard sell you and that we'll always take care of you. If at any time during our relationship you're not satisfied for any reason, just let us know. We'll be happy to cancel your policy and return the unused portion of your premium to you. It's that simple. And then of course we added at the bottom the total satisfaction guarantee. Friends, it's not complicated. It's not rocket science. I checked with my friend the rocket scientist one time, by the way, and he told me, mike, this isn't complicated, it's not rocket science. And there I knew. All right, so, and then, then.

We decided to have all of our team members sign it, making it even more official. But you see, there's a bigger positive by having them do that than just it being on the form. See, they all know that their John or Jane Hancock is on this document going out to everybody out there in the world. And they better stand behind what they said they're going to do. By the way, I just had this idea and we're not doing it. We should be doing it. We could be sending out this guarantee to our team like once a month strategically, on a certain day, just as a friendly reminder that, hey, just a reminder that we've all signed the guarantee and it continues to go out. Last week we sent out 18 guarantees and we just wanted to let you know that everybody's seeing it. So if there's anything that we can be doing to help you serve and protect our clients, our future clients, and our communities, let us know. Just an idea for you. Okay. So we have the guarantee in writing this cool looking paper, all of our team members have signed it. And then we decided to do something else to continue to improve. If we want things to change, we've got to change. You've got to continually be improving. We decided to add a notarization to it. So we got a hold of a notary, we have the notary come in and stamp their stamp of approval with their notarization on it and voila. So we have this cool guarantee on the cool paper, a very cost effective paper down at Office Depot or whatever it was. We had all of our team members sign it and we put a notary on it and we just started distributing it, friends. It was absolutely and continues to be absolutely awesome. So.

That'S how it all started. That's the back history. All right, so number one, get started. Just take action somehow by creating your own guarantee. And I'll guarantee that if you are on our list of podcast recipients, meaning you are notified next time, every time our podcast is launched that you will be receiving a copy of our guarantees, the old one and the new one. So take a look at it and implement. So number one is understand what you're going to do and implement it. Number two, what should be included in your guarantee? Well, first of all, you got to figure out what you're guaranteeing. Are you guaranteeing money back? Are you guaranteeing 100% client satisfaction? Are you guaranteeing both? I'm going to get to that in just a minute. Do you have social proof included?

Are your team signatures included and is it notarized? I jumped ahead of myself here. Okay, what should be included? My recommendation, all of that and live references.

Do you have your promise or your. We call it. Our mission statement is not called a mission statement, it's called a promise. We don't like to do anything normally. If you want to know what to do, look at what the rest of the world, rest of the marketplace, your local marketplace is doing and do the exact opposite. That's what you should be doing. I'm going to squirrel. Don't look at me that way. Sos. Okay. I was talking with a longtime business colleague of mine just the other day and she said, I have a lot of respect for this person and we now handle all of their insurance.

Seven Eight, nine policies. But in conversation she said, hey, Mike, do you remember when we met? I said, I'm sorry, I don't. She goes, I remember the day. I said, really? What makes it memorable? She said, we were at a local event, there was a lot of people in the room and everybody was introducing themselves and you stood up and you had on a doctor's coat and you were talking about insurance prescriptions that cure. She goes, I will never forget that moment. That's my prime example for you today of looking what everybody else is doing and doing the exact opposite. She remembered the uniqueness of that moment and that is in correlation with today's talk about guarantees and risk reversal. Doing something that nobody else is doing, that nobody else has the guts to do, that nobody else is willing to do to earn people's business.

Money follows trust. Alright, so we don't call it our mission statement, we call it our promise. Okay? And then 12 questions you should ask every insurance agent, okay, so what should you include in your guarantee, what you're guaranteeing, social proof, team signatures, you should notarize it, live references, your promise or whatever you call your mission statement. 12 questions you should ask every insurance agent and whatever else that it's innovative, unique.

About you and what you offer to the marketplace. I mean, we could go on a long time about this. So I'm looking at our current four page guarantee that we continually endeavor to improve and we do continue to improve it. So I am uber proud of this document. So our headline on our guarantee says if your insurance agent is not offering an unconditional money back guarantee, ask them why not? And it's big, it's unique, it's bold. Or simply call Mike Stromsel and find out why he does Stromso Insurance Agency Delivers satisfaction guaranteed 100% satisfaction or your money back. It's that simple. It follows the same mindset that we talked about early in our original early days. Guarantee. And then I told a story. When you choose Stromstone Insurance as your local independent insurance agency of choice, you'll always have our unconditional total satisfaction guarantee. Okay? And then it goes on and it's got my picture on there with my name and, and our logo and our branding and all that kind of stuff. So that's all on the front page. If they open it up, it's a four fold. By the way, it says the headline is. By the way, your headline or your subject line is always 66% or more of the response mechanism in your marketing efforts. Know that it's critically Important. Every single word counts. And it starts with the five pepper words you guarantee. Five free new sex. Okay, so back to the headline that we've got on page two. Discover why these people are willing to tell how good they have it. Discover why these people are willing to tell how good they have it. I'm not talking about I. I'm not talking about we. It's all about them, never about you. Alright, so what do we have on this page? Nothing but strategically placed testimonials. Strategically placed in what they say about personal insurance, about commercial insurance, about claims service, etc. Strategic. So it covers 100% of the marketplace. Because if you want to reach 100% of the marketplace, you've got to position 100% of the ways that they should be paying attention. All right, then we've got again all of our signatures down at the bottom and of course our notarization. Then on page three, Others who will. The headline is others who will testify to the superior results of Mike Stromsone, the Total Protection Team. Just ask them. And we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 photographs of clients that I strategically reached out to and said to them, hey, I was recently asked and I was, and I'm going to go into the story in just a minute. I was strategically asked if I would be willing to provide the names and contact information of clients who, if I wanted to contact them and ask about their experience with your insurance agency, Would you mind? Of course. I said, no problem. Okay. So that's where I learned to do this. My very, very strong recommendation. As an example, if you're a niche player out there in the world in a, say hypothetically, commercial lines, niche or even personal lines, niche, high net worth. Personal lines is a great niche. Alright, so whatever your niche is, go to five or so clients within that niche and ask them if they would be willing to be live references for you. Okay, so here's the story that taught me this lesson. A number of years ago, we'll say it was a number of years ago, I was out on an appointment with a new producer. He said, hey, would you go out on this appointment with me? It's a large client or prospect and I'd like to land it. And I just want you to be there, lend expertise, whatever. I said, of course, I'll go. So we got in the car, drove about an hour to the prospect and was sitting there and did the meeting and it went pretty well. And I taught the producer, I said, whatever you do, at the end of the meeting, if he doesn't buy on the spot. Set the next appointment and set the, set the table for what the next action steps are. And he goes, all right, I got it. So we got to the end of the meeting and we said he didn't buy on spot. And he said, so the producer said, what are the next steps? Would you like to be the next steps? How would you like us to continue to help you? The prospect said.

I would like the names and contact information of five people that you already do business with in my industry because I might want to call them and ask about their experience with you.

Bam.

Can you do that for me? And we said, of course. Well, the bottom line is we didn't have that together, but we said, of course we're going to do it. So we wrapped everything up in the meeting, got in the vehicle and I called the office driving back and I said, hey, my right hand gal at the time, I said, hey, call so and so. So and so. Those five existing clients, ask them if they would be willing to allow us to share their contact information because we have a large new possible client that may want to contact them. And when I get back to the office, let me know, shoot me an email with all the contact information. And versus it says, okay. So by the time I got back to the office, I had an email in my inbox. Every one of them, what do you think they said? They said, no problem. They said, of course, have them contact me. We're going, yes. So we provided this information to the person in that particular niche industry. Long story short, we wrote the account and I remember saying to my right hand CSR gal in the commercial department a few weeks later I said, hey, by the way, those names that we provided out to the new client, now do you know by chance if anybody ever called them? She goes, it's funny you say that because I was on the phone with so and so and so and so and so and so recently, and I asked them if anybody ever called them, what do you think? Every one of them said.

No, nobody ever called. You see, friends, there is extreme power in the risk removal realm, in the social proof realm. When you are willing to put this information out there.

And just say, hey, these people have already agreed to take your inquiry. There's power in that. They're like, wow, nobody's ever done that before. Okay. My strong encouragement as well in testimonials nowadays is to not only put their name so. John Smith in Murrieta, California. Phone number is 951-555-1212. And John Smith's email is, if you're willing to do that and you're willing to put that on your testimonial sheet, friends, there's power there. And just know that it is rare if ever anybody's going to call. That is true. Full power risk removal. Okay, and then at the bottom of our reference page, we've got our promise to you. Our promise that our team created as part of our branding process. And it says at the bottom, please feel free to email or call any one of these people about their experience with our agency and we'll be happy to provide more references upon request.

Never happens. And a couple of these people I know pretty well, I ask them from time to time. Hey, have you ever heard from anybody? They never hear. There's power. Trust me. And then the fourth page is the 12 questions you should ask every insurance agent. Okay. So are you a fully licensed agency? Well, that's a duh, but it's important. Do you represent multiple companies so you can shop the entire marketplace? Will I speak with a live person 247365 in our agency? Well, it's been happening for four or five years. How often will I hear from you? Will I receive ongoing communication from your office at least monthly? You bet you will. Is your business a rated by the Better Business Bureau with a zero complaint history? There's a lot of people say the what the better what? We believe in it and we use it and there's still a lot of people out there. And here's the key. There's a lot of people out there with a lot of money who know about the Better Business Bureau and they know what it means to have a zero complaint ratio. Does your agent fully explain your coverage all of the time? Is that important? Yes. Are there easy flexible payment plans available? Can you share with me the details of your referral program? Can you. Is 247 claims assistant available from all of your companies? Is it. Why do people buy insurance? To protect them if they have a claim. Do you have an interactive website that provides everything I need 24 7. Does your agency feature a dedicated service agent that I can build a relationship with?

Relationship plus trust equals money follows trust. And is your service 100% guaranteed in writing? Those are our 12 questions. Why should people be doing business with us over and above and in all other options available to them? That's it right there. Friends and I will tell the story all day long. Okay? And then at the bottom is an important note. Any insurance professional will be able to answer these questions. 12 questions with no problem. If he or she cannot. It doesn't mean that they're not a good person. It just means that they may not be qualified to protect you, you, your family.

And your most valuable assets. Why do people buy insurance.

To protect everything they work so hard for? It's that simple. Friends. Risk Removal guarantee Important. So implement number one. Number two, we just covered in long detail what should be included in your guarantee. Number three, how do you use your new guarantee in every way possible? Put it in everything that goes out in your direct mail pieces. Weigh your envelopes that leave the office. If you've got extra ounce space, maximize that sucker. And of course in existing clients and prospecting, add it to your welcome kit. New clients need the removal of buyer's remorse all the time. And of course face to face and of course on your website and of course as part of your follow up funnel in your marketing arsenal system and, and, and, and any way that you can. Friends, what does this mean for you? See, people just want to know that you stand behind your words and your actions by creating a unique guarantee and risk removal system for your agency. It's just one more way that you can show, not just say show accidents, speak out louder than words that you and your team will deliver on the promises and ensure 100% complete satisfaction guarantee. What does this mean for you? Well, I talked about earlier a 31% increase.

Your closing ratio, what does that mean for you? More money. What does that mean for you? More freedom, More peace of mind? Sleep better at night. Does that sound good? See, I don't think you can ever have enough credibility to sustain your business forever. Building credibility in the form of referrals, testimonials and guarantees. It must be a permanent ongoing process within your business to grow your business, to create that financial wealth and to have more freedom to live life on your own terms. Friends, that's all we want for you. We've got this amazing life's journey that we've been on and we just want to help you in any way that we can to have just some of this amazing peace of mind that we have. Friends, I hope that helps you today. Most importantly, like I said, number one, I'll do a quick recap. Implement. Get started. Number two, make sure you lay out what you want identified in your guarantee. And number three, list all the ways you're going to use your new guarantee and you will start to increase your business like you've never experienced before. Alright? And I'm sure we got some samples somewhere around this podcast, so take those as a sample and most importantly, implement, Execute. Take action. Friends, it's been awesome spending time with you again today. We just want to help you grow your business, create financial wealth, and have more freedom. So get out there and implement, execute and take action. Because you will be making a difference. You will continue to be even more unstoppable, and you will, above all, leave no regrets. This is Mike S. Coming to you live from the Living Agency Laboratory. I'll see you in the next episode. Thank you for listening. If you would like to listen to more episodes or share this podcast with someone you care about, please visit www.unstoppableprofitpodcast.com now go out and make a difference. Be unstoppable and leave no regrets.