Episode 228: How To Get 1000 or More Google Reviews

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.

Greetings and welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit Podcast. I want to bring something to you today, for you today, that will help you exponentially into the future. And it's really fairly simple. It will help you grow your agency, it absolutely will create wealth for your agency, and ultimately it will give you more freedom. And what inspired me to bring you this message today was a conversation with a super high performing UPP member this week, up Platinum member this week, who told me the agency has grown so much, is so cash rich.

That there's more money than this agent knows what to do with. Is that a place where you want to be? If it is, I strongly suggest that you pay close attention. And it's going to be very simple today, what we have for you. And I think back to my early days. My early days of growth and progress in the insurance agency business started from scratch in 1998 on my own. And I was looking for a way you can probably relate to this. Working super hard, working long days, into the night, on the weekends, all by yourself. That's what I was doing. Finally, after six or seven months, I had grown enough with enough cash flow to hire somebody to at least answer the phones and with all due respect, keep people off my back so I could do what I do. And that was the beginning and it was phenomenal. 1999, I received an invitation to an attendant event within the insurance industry. I went there and I was sitting there watching what was going on. And this was my turning point. This was my turning point in my career journey. I was sitting there watching these agents who had figured it out and they were sharing how they did it and what they did. And I was sitting there going, oh my gosh, they've already got it figured out. I've been beating my head against a brick wall trying to figure it out myself. Why am I doing that? I'm just gonna borrow what they've already figured out, become a massive implementer and go from there and the rest is history. And I could share with you my position in life, my financial position in life, and everything else. Right now, I'm not Going to do that. But there are no worries. I'll just leave that on the table right now. With that being said, the very first thing, the very first thing that I learned that I actually implemented was social proof testimonials. Specifically, we had almost 2500 testimonials, Google reviews, words of praise from our claim service reports and everything else at the height of the number in our insurance agency business. So phenomenal. And at the end of the day, we never woke up on a day where there was not ample leads that we could pursue. Get clients, keep clients. So what does that look like today in today's world? Well, simply, it's your online presence. Yes. You can use testimonials and social proof in your offline efforts. We're not going to focus on that today. I'm going to focus on how do you get more Google reviews. If you play in Yelp and anything else, how do you get more and how do you position yourself to get more? And most importantly, and you may want to pause if you haven't already put it in front of yourself, grab something to write with and write on because you're going to want to get this. Because what you're wanting to do after that, you're going to want to train your team. If you want to send your team the link to this podcast. Welcome, team members. This is not complicated. It's really all about daily habits. Let me re emphasize that daily habits training is like bathing is recommended daily. Asking for a review is like bathing. It's recommended daily. Asking for a referral is like bathing. It's recommended daily. If you do the daily habits every single day, you will have more, you will become more, and everything will happen for you. But you must position yourself okay. And I'm going to share with you three words that are the absolute key before you get into that position.

So you may be thinking, why should I listen to this? Well, let me drop some numbers. I'm looking at the numbers and I just looked them up before recording this podcast. These are three of our UP platinum coaching members who have been in our program for a period of time. I'll suggest five years or more. And they have also figured a lot out and they have done a lot and implemented a lot. So I just did a spot check on their Google reviews to see where they're at. The unstoppable Susan Augustiniak out of Jacksonville, Florida. 1,303 Google reviews. The unstoppable Patty Lara's out of Southern California. 882 reviews. The unstoppable Rosie and Martin Felix out of Southern California as well. 405 Google reviews and if I missed you and you're a UP member, please forgive me. There's a lot of other members. That was my just quick check in before recording this. There's lots of other members who are doing that. In addition to that, please make sure that your online presence is rock solid, that you're continuing to inspect what you expect at least every single month to make sure your online presence is up to date. Because we were talking about this in our most recent Mastermind sessions in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. There was a member whose online presence is absolutely rock solid. And what's happening for that member? He's been able to be agile and shifted out of being a personal lines driven agency into a commercial lines driven agency. And these accounts are coming right to him. In fact, he shared a story in those Mastermind sessions that a person came into his office to do business with him and he said, can I share with you anything about our operation? And the person said, no, I have fully vetted you online. I've learned everything that I want to learn about you online. You are absolutely rock solid. I believe in who you are and what you do. I'm ready to do business right now. And he said, you don't need to tell me anything. Is your online presence in that position? If it's not, it must be. And you know, it's back to putting yourself in that position. But what's going to drive that? You know, Google. Shall we just say they have a lot of influence into online presence? Absolutely, they do. So your Google business profile, your search engine optimization, your keywords and all that. And again, we're not going to go into that today. Let me share with you how you and your team members can get more reviews, which is the new form of social proof and testimonials that that's in the lead. It's not the end all be all, but it's the lead mechanism. Okay, so this I have a turning point in my journey. We had a teammate in our agency business five, six, seven years ago who came to us from transparently Geico and was not happy there, found us, came on with us, super happy being in an independent agency. She came to me one day and said, hey, I've got a question for you. I learned something when I was training at that G company and I'm wondering if it's okay if I use it every time that I'm on the phone with a customer. I said, what did you learn? And I've got it right here. She said, at the end of every call, they taught us to say, it was my goal to provide you excellent service. Did I do that for you today?

I said, so, Krista, what do you think you should do? Pause. The better the question, the better the results. Don't just check the box. Yes. Position them, question them, check with them and make sure that they have the full dialogue as to, most importantly, why.

They need to do that on every phone call. Okay. And I did that. I said, absolutely, it's a great idea. I said, krista, what are you going to do after they say, yes, you provided us great service, you care, you guys rock, et cetera, et cetera. Which, by the way, 80% of the time, that will be the response. That is when that door swung wide, wide open. And now you're at the pearly gates of asking for that Google review. And if you want to shift off of that, if you want to, you know, do Google reviews one week and do referrals another week, fantastic. But you're at the gates to the pearly gates. Okay. Because they've said yes. You guys are awesome. You position them right then and there. That is fantastic. Thank you so much for your kind words. It's always our goal to provide excellent care and service for you, to properly protect you. Oh, by the way. And there's your shift or your, your position. Okay, you're shifting your position.

Oh, by the way, if you know anybody else that would like the same level of care, service and protection as you're receiving, can I give you my direct contact information? Would you have them contact me and I'm going to follow up with some information. That's the referral example today. Let's focus reviews. Okay? So. Oh, by the way, thank you so much for your kind words. It's always our goal and what you're doing here is reinforcing what they just said. It's always my goal. It's always our goal to provide you excellent service and excellent care and the best protection available. As an independent insurance agency. You may not want to say all that, but I'm just giving you some things that you can work with to make them your own. Okay. It's always our goal. By the way, if, if you would help us out, we would greatly appreciate it. I just texted you a link and that link is a link. If you can give us a five star Google review, we would really, really appreciate it because we get a lot of other people that ask about other people's experience with our agency. And if you could leave us a five star Google review, I'd really appreciate it. And really help me out as well, because we have a contest going on this month and if I get the most Google reviews, I get an additional bonus which would really help me and my family.

Let's pause for a minute. If you are a team member and you say that to somebody and you have the depth of relationship.

They will do it. I've had that happen time and time and time again with teammates over the years. If you have that kind of relationship, they want to help you out. Okay? So it was my goal to provide you excellent service today. Did I do that for you today? And then you shift. I'm going to share with you a simpler example in just a minute. But let me go back for a minute. There's three keywords that I mentioned earlier.

That we must always be doing every single day, in every single way, and every communication with our clients, whether it be on the phone, on, via Zoom, Live, face to face, via email, via text, whatever that is. Okay? You must ask. You must ask for whatever it is you want. If you don't ask, you don't get. So it might be the review, it might be the referral, or anything else. If you don't ask, you don't get. Dale Carnegie said 91% of salespeople never ask for the referral. And in this case or the review, 91%. The only competition that you have is that that you make for yourselves. Don't let it be you, okay? Ask number one. Second, you must earn. You must earn the right to receive the review. You must earn the right to. To be referred. Okay, you must earn it. How do you earn it? You work your butt off for the customers is what you do. Now back to customers. You got to make sure that you have the right kind of customers. That's a whole nother conversation. By the way, I did a podcast three or four episodes ago on the art of disqualification. Disqualification. Go back and watch that or listen to that. That'll keep the customers you don't want out of your funnel. Let's get back to the matter at hand. So one was ask. Second is earn. But more importantly than that, the third word is. And this is my most recent feeling on the matter. Deliver. You must deliver. Every single time, every single day, in every single way, you must deliver. You or your team must deliver. And when you consistently deliver, you are consistently worthy of receiving that referral. You are consistently worthy of receiving that review and everything else that you may ask for. You Must deliver, ask, earn, deliver. It's not complicated, my friends. It's simple. You just got to do it every single day in every single way. You've got to continually prepare yourself, train yourself, make sure your team is trained in the same manner to do it every single day. And if you will rinse and repeat that every single day, I will guarantee you you'll grow your business, create wealth, and. And have more freedom. So I was on the phone with the aforementioned Felix team recently, and.

They just got to 400. They were super pumped out about it because they did the work and they implemented and all that kind of stuff. And.

In collaborating, I said, hey, congratulations on your next level accomplishment. And. And the. And the comments were, we're going to 500 right away. I said, I got your back. Whatever you need from us to help you, you got it. He goes, no, we got it. I said, by the way, speaking of you got it, what you do, how did you do it? Oh, my God. And he said, it's simple. I said, it is. Do tell. He goes, we simply say to people, are we doing a good job for you?

And I thought about that for a minute. I had the note in front of me from my teammate a number of years ago at what she got in her training. It was my goal to provide you excellent service. Did I do that for you today? And then the team member, Felix team member said, are we doing a good job for you? I thought about that and I said, that's even simpler and it's more conversational in today's languaging. I like that. So there it is. It's easier for you.

You must ask, you must earn. So after you've earned the right to receive the review by delivering, ask, earn, deliver by delivering. If you've earned the right to receive the review.

All you got to do is ask and how you position the conversation to open it up where you can text that link to them. Which, by the way, is the better way to get a review quickly versus an email. Emails get lost. Text them while you're on the phone with them. Okay. And if you say, hey, Susie, I just want to do a quick check before we wrap up today. Are we doing a good job for you? Susie will think, yeah. You guys are doing an amazing job for us. I love dealing with you guys. You take excellent care of me when things go wrong. You help me, you work for me hard at claim. You're always there. You answer the phone, you respond. I always know where I'm at. Even when the market, you know the, the insurance companies raise their rates and all that kind of stuff. You always explain it to me, so I understand. You guys are awesome.

Susie, thank you. Thank you for your kind words. We love serving you at the highest level and we're grateful that you're receiving that level of care. And oh, by the way, we get a lot of people that ask about other people's experience with our agency. Susie, I just sent you a text message with a link. If you could leave us a five star Google review about the experience that you just described, it would really help us out. We would super appreciate it. And by the way, Susie, we have a fun drawing at the end of the month. We're going to put all the reviews received this month and we're going to draw a name. The person whose name we draw, we're going to give a $100 donation to their favorite charity. So if you have a favorite charity on your heart, and you will leave us that review, we would be grateful and we hope you draw your name.

Friends. It's that simple. It is not complicated. You just have to, in the words of Nike, do it. Just do it. And if you don't start it within the next 72 hours, it's not going to happen. You've got 72 hours. That's a fun thing that's been going around our circles lately. So I hope that's helped you today because you have to be answering this question every single way and every single day on every single communication. Why should people do business with you over and above any and all other options available to them? They have options. They don't need you. So you've got to position yourself to be that white knight of the insurance agency business in your marketplaces. Okay? Why? Why should people do business with you? The beginning of that answer is, hear me clear on this. It's what other people say you've already done for them. That is the beginning of that answer. Is it the answer? In totality? No, but it's the beginning of that answer. So, friends, I hope this has helped you today. I simply just recommend, go out there, collaborate with your team, make sure everybody's on the same board. Write it down. Write it down. This is the piece of paper that I had on my monitor for a number of years where I simply asked that question every single time from somebody that I wanted the review from. Wink, wink. That's 80% of our clients. Okay? And just do it. Just position yourself because you, if, if you've earned the right because you deliver, you are worthy of receiving that review. Build your business around it. The aforementioned agents that I talked about, you know what their, their challenges, they got so much business coming at them. They're just looking for more excellent people. That's their biggest challenge. Is that somewhere where you want to be? I hope so. And we're here to help you with that. Thank you for joining us 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 us@undoppableprofitproducer.com if you're interested in attending a live or virtual event to learn how to grow your business, create wealth so you too can have more freedom to live life on your own terms, look us up. Our virtual event portal is up Fast Start dotcom that's up fast start.com and our live event portal is be unstoppable bootcamp.com that's be unstoppable bootcamp.com all of our events are designed to share with you our greatest money making strategies developed over 36 years as a proud independent insurance agent so you can grow your business, create wealth, and have more freedom to live life on your own terms. And if you've got great value out of this podcast, please share it with somebody else that you care about. Whether it be another agent, a business owner, whatever, Please share it. The link is unstoppable profit podcast.com that's Unstoppable Profit Podcast. And if you haven't done so yet, go there. Unstoppable Profit podcast.com go up to the top. Click subscribe so you don't miss one valuable episode of the podcast where we share real, current, relevant information to help you grow your business from the trenches of today's independent insurance agency business. Okay, thank you for joining us. And until next time, get out there, make a difference, be unstoppable and leave no regrets. And again, what you learned on the podcast today, you've only got 72 hours or nothing's going to happen. And we don't want that for you. I believe in you and you got this. I'll see you in the next episode.

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