Episode 233: Why Your Dreams Are NOT Big Enough

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 share with you something today, some thoughts, some actual experiences from the trenches of the insurance agency business on something, a topic that continues to come up time and time and time again on my travels within agencies on the west coast to the Midwest to the East Coast. And this topic continues to surface. So when that happens, I bring it here to share with all of you. And it's surrounding one word and it's vision. Vision is the art of seeing things that other people can't see. And I was speaking with some agents just recently and they said, we need to increase our mindset. We need to increase our outlook into the future. We're not thinking big enough. And it reminded me that they're not alone. And it reminded me that I have an actual story that recently happened in my life where I, too, got caught short. So I'm going to share with you a story from my journey from now, what, almost eight years ago, and that current story to help you, and I hope this helps you in setting your vision. Listen, we've only got one life to live. Don't sell yourself short. Think bigger than you've ever thought possible before. What do you have to lose? And you have everything to gain. So let's jump in. For me, it started actually in 2014. It was in Southern California. I got invited to an event. A gentleman by the name of Cameron Herold was speaking there, and there's about 800 entrepreneurs in the room from all different industries. And he was speaking and he said, raise your hand if you have a team member on your team that you know needs to go. In other words, your weakest link, or you wouldn't rehire them, but they need to go. So I raised my hand. And so he goes, if you had your hand in the air, now I want you to stand up. So I stood up. And he goes, great, you just made a commitment to go back to your business and do something about that. And I'm thinking, whoa. But I did it because I made the commitment. Commitment is the thing you said you were going to do long after the mood you said it in has passed. So I went back to the business and I took care of that commitment that I made. And guess what? Our business became better because of that decision and exiting that weakest length at the length at the time that if you will, cancer within the culture. Do any of those, any of you have a cancer within your culture? I strongly encourage you to make this, to take the step and do something about it. Think about it like this. Let's say you have seven other team members. Is it really fair to them if that person is still around? I'll suggest, no, it's not. Okay. It is infecting your culture. It's infecting that invisible architecture within your business. So I dived into Cameron Herold's book after I was influenced by him, called Double Double. Fast forward to 2015. My wife and I were heading to Europe. And when I go on trips like that, I always want to have something to do. I do not sit still. Well, and I don't like to sit still. I always need something to do. And so I took a couple of books with me. I got through 10x by Grant Cardone, and then I came to Double Double when we got to a resort in the south of Spain in Estopana. And so I'm walking around the resort, went out on the beautiful beach and I looked to the south and there was the Rock of Gibraltar. Very, very cool. So we're hanging out at the resort and start going through the book Double Double. And I'm starting to get excited because I'm learning something that, you know, I needed to be in that position at that time. This book arrived for the right reason at the right time that I needed it to. Right. Has that ever happened to you? Exactly. So my wife was going to the store. She said, hey, do you need anything from the store? I said, there is something I need. She goes, what is it? I said, I'm going to go with you. She goes, what do you need? I said, I need a journaling book. She goes, all right. So went down to the store, grabbed my journaling books, came back, dived right back into the book. And when I was done with the book, I had journaled out a plan or a vision.

Report or a vivid vision statement, as it's called, and about how I was going to grow the business, my agency business, in a way bigger than I ever thought possible. I was going to add on 400 agency locations. How was I going to do that? Well, I just happen to have an agency client who's In a business that was exploding at the time, the cell phone industry. You may have heard of them. You know, cell phones, the old joke, right? The cell phone bill is due and money's tight. We're going to put food on the table or pay our cell phone bill.

How long do we have to think about it, right? It's like the Willy Wonka story from the movie. You know, the. The gal whose husband had been kidnapped and she has a case of Wonka bars. Police came to her house and said, ma', am, we've talked to the people that kidnapped your husband. They want your case of Wonka Bars. And she's silent at the moment. And the police said, ma', am, they want your Wonka Bars. It's your husband or your Wonka Bars. And she said, how long do I have to think about, right? Well, similar with cell phones. So this cell phone retailer had over 400 locations. I set a meeting with the cell phone retailer and I said, hey, I would like to put an insurance agent's location inside every one of your cell phone stores and, and access your client base and see if we can, you know, bring more insurance in. They said, we love that idea. I said, what do we need to do to make it happen? Or what's the next step? They said, well, we buy businesses all the time. Our normal operating procedure is we need to have 51% ownership of your business to make that deal. And I said, I have to think about that, right? And so I ended up not doing the deal for whatever reason. That was my decision at the time. Would that be my decision again nowadays? I don't know, because I'm in a different river than I was back then, and I'm not the same person I was back then, whatever. That being said, that was the beginning evolution of my mindset on how to set an even bigger vision on how to take action on that even bigger vision. Vision. And the great news is you can do it, too. So that iconic book that started my thought process was a book called Double Double by Cameron Herold. And then I picked up his next book called Vivid Vision. And that's really how to set your vivid vision. Case in point, I set the vivid vision in 2015. Fast forward to current times. Some seven, eight years later, I am ready to jump on a coaching session with one of my coaches. And so I jumped on the coaching session and she said, how's it going? I said, going great. She goes, what are you working on? I said, I'm working on this. She goes, based on your goals, by the way, let's recap your goals. And I said, okay, our primary goal is this. She goes, great. What happens after you hit that goal? Well, this is going to happen. She goes, fantastic. What happens after you hit that?

And that was my answer. Silence. And she said, mike, that surprises me, knowing you like I do. I'm surprised you're limiting your mindset like that. And I said, those are some pretty big head goals. She goes, I get that, but why are you limiting your mindset and your future vision? I said, thank you for saying that. So I went back and I said, I'm going to commit to do the same thing I did about eight years ago and reset my vision for the future. So I got to work on my vivid vision for the next three years for our organization, and it's done. And I've shared it with a number of people that I have strong, meaningful, deep relationships with that I trust, because I told them I want their feedback on what they see on the vision statement that I created. And they've given me feedback, and they've helped me think about things that I couldn't see. Because sometimes you're too close to it. You can't see the forest through the trees. Right? So it's been a phenomenal exercise, and it works right into our vision organizer that we have for our business. Because I want to give you something today that you can start with right now. Starting here, starting today. Okay? So that is. And I'm going to run through just a couple of steps. And this is where if you don't have something to write with and write on, you might want to pause right now and go get that. Okay? So I'll give you a second. All right. Welcome back.

Please jot this down because these are the things that you need to start with in order to set your vision statement. I'm going to give you a couple of key points as I work through this with you. First of all, your vision statement or organizer needs to contain your core values for your business. Your core values are the heartbeat of your internal operation. It's your culture. It's the definition of your culture. Okay? Culture eats strategy and everything else for breakfast. As said by Peter Drucker. It's your culture. It's the invisible architecture within your business. What are your core values? This exercise does not happen in an afternoon session. It takes time to develop these. But once identified what's developed, you will begin to praise and recognize, based on the core values, discipline based on the core values. Higher based on the core values. Terminate based on the core values and they will begin permeating throughout your business. And the cool thing is it's an outside third party statement per se and it takes all the pressure off your shoulders. Hey, our core values say this and that's why we do what we do. It's not you, you, you or me, me, me. It's the outside third party thing in this case. The core values. Core values. Your core purpose. Our core purpose as an example here at UPP is to impact people's lives personally and professionally. That's why we get out of bed professionally. To impact people's lives personally and professionally. And isn't it not coincidental that since we really got clear on this a few years ago, that we've started identifying situations where we are impacting people's lives personally and professionally. It's awesome. It's incredible. It's so.

Awesome. I don't have any other words. It's just incredible when we hear those stories of the impacted lives. Okay, Core values, core purpose, your marketing strategy, and then the other page, and the cool thing is this is just two simple pages. Then the other side of the page is you have your quarterly goals. So what you want to accomplish within a quarter. So this particular recording is in the fourth quarter of a year. Okay, so we have quarterly goals for this quarter and on 1231 at the end of the quarter that's going to reset your quarterly goals. Okay? Then be working in conjunction with the quarterly goals is your one year plan. So that also ends on 1231. And then on the other side you have your three year forecast. So forecasting out three years and then beyond that is the ten year vision. Where do you want to be in ten years? So let me give you something you can use right now concerning your three year forecast and even your ten year vision. Okay? So imagine with me and we'll just pick a date in the future. Let's say it's 1231 of 2027. Let's say that's at the end of your three year vision. Let's say it's December 31, 2027 and you are getting ready to celebrate.

You're getting ready to celebrate what's happened in the last three years. It's been the most incredible three year ride in the history of our agency business. The things that have happened in the last three years, not only did we surpass our goals in a big, big way, the things that have happened have been absolutely mind boggling. Good. Our, our dreams have come true. And beyond the things that have Happened just incredible.

With that thought process, you need to jot down, what does that look like? What does it look like that just happened in the last three years. That is the beginning of your planning of your vision. Start with the end in mind. It's been said. So write down what does that look like? The most incredible insurance agency that you could have ever dreamt of has become reality. What does that look like? That is the beginning of your vision statement. And then, you know, if you've got a three year forecast and then 10 years out, blow it out of the water. What does that look like? And here's the two key words that make this process and this working through it so incredibly spectacular. Reverse engineering. Reverse engineering. So let me give an example. I just happen to be looking at an example from. I did, I taught on this at our recent Be Unstoppable boot camp. And so I taught these exact numbers. Okay? So stay with me. And if you're writing this down, fantastic. Don't think it, ink it. Okay, so a three year forecast. Let's say you wanted to be at 4 million in premium. Let's say you want to be at 4 million in Premium. Three years before that you were at a million in premium. Okay? Three years before that you were at a million in premium at the end of that fiscal year. Okay? So you want to increase $3 million in written premium over the next 36 months. The quite simple way to do this, it's so simple. When I first learned this and how the whole inner workings of this vision planning and execution work. It's, it's, it's simple. Okay, so you want to increase $3 million over 36 months. You divide that by 36 months and simply need to put on 83, $333 in new business premium per month for every month over the next 36 months to hit your goal. That's the reverse engineering of it. Now I get it. You've got attrition and, or, or retention and all that in play. I get it, I get it, I get it. But you got to start somewhere. Now you got to figure that out. And it works for every segment of the numbers on the KPIs as far as how we teach. Okay? So, and it's about having a plan. And we simply get the plan together and we build in accountability, we build in leadership, leadership team sessions to make sure that we stay on plan. We get updates and self accountability from the leadership team and everything else. That's the short lesson on vision planning from my own journey. So the Next question is, what about yours?

I hope this has helped you in some way. Because all we want, the reason we exist in the Unstoppable Profit Producer program, is to help people, to impact people's lives personally and professionally. To help them put the plan together so they can grow their business, create wealth and have more freedom so they can live life on their own terms. So if this has helped you, if this podcast has helped you, fantastic. Please share it with somebody else that you care about, maybe another agent, maybe another business owner. Please share the podcast with them. Just go to unstoppable profit podcast.com go up to the top. Make sure you hit subscribe. Subscribe so you don't miss one valuable episode and share the link with them so they too can continue to get value out of the podcast. Because that's what we aim to bring every single week. So welcome and thank you. And if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Stomps. I'm widely recognized as a leading author, speaker and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can learn more about us and everything we do at Unstoppable Profit Producer.

If you're interested in attending one of our virtual or live events, you can go to for our virtual events uppfaststart.com and of course our live events are at Be Unstoppable boot camp.com all of our events are designed to share with you some of our best money making strategies developed over 36 years of research in our industry as a 100 of the time independent insurance, insurance agency entrepreneur. And we, we everything we do and teach is again designed to help you grow your business, create wealth so you can have more freedom to live life on your own terms. So again, bookmark Unstoppable Profit producer.com hit subscribe and the podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, stitcher, Amazon, our YouTube channel and beyond. So we hope this has helped you, but the only thing is going to get you anywhere is action. You've only got 72 hours to take action because if you don't take action on anything that you learned on this podcast in the next 72 hours, probably not going to happen. I will see you on the next episode. Thank you for the opportunity to help you, to share with you and to help you grow, create wealth and to have more freedom to live life on your own terms. You got this. We believe in you. I'll see you on the next episode.

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