Episode 303: Scale Like Never Before

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 stromso.

The next 12 months, we will be a defining turning point in your agency journey. If you're willing to open your mind, pull back the curtain and get ready to scale like you never have before, will there be discomfort? Yes. Will there be change? Yes. Will there be elevated expectations and accountability required? Yes. We make everybody happy? No. Will it require a perfect effort? Yes. Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable Profit podcast and what I'm going to share with you. I shared with a large group of independent insurance agency owners recently and they told me, mike, that was absolutely awesome. Let me share with you where I came up with this information. I have been talking to some of the best, the best of the best independent insurance agency owners across America who are actively scaling right now. And so I put together that information, came up with a lot of my own thoughts and strategies, put it all together, and this is what we have for you today. We exist to impact agencies lives personally and professionally. And what I'm going to share with you today is not for everybody, but that's not you. So let's get going. Know this. Number one, there's two types of builders. There's planners and then there's reactors. Across all conversations, there's a stark divide between two types of owners. The planners, they think years ahead. Example, one leader began planning a national rollout of a program in 2011 and didn't execute it till 2017. You see, the thing is, most agency owners don't know they're doing a deal until the banker tells them what they're worth.

The reactors they wait for catalyst. Sometimes things like death, burnout, health scare, or a buyout call. These owners make forced decisions rather than strategic ones. The Onyx position mentality is a deliberate acceleration, not desperation. And you might be thinking, what's Onyx? Stay tuned. I'll share that with you in a few minutes. Your intake filter for everything that happens within your independent insurance agency business. Are you operating on purpose or by accident? Are you operating on purpose, intentionally or by accident? Next, calculated courage. You see, the best agencies know exactly what they are risking before they make their big move. They've got their Fingers on the pulse. Like numbers don't lie.

They didn't want just cutting edge, they wanted bleeding edge. Everyone thought it was too risky. Some said and they said that's the whole point.

High performing agencies are not risk adverse, they're risk calibrated. They seek leverage, capital, people coaching, all of that AI automation to compress time. They're not adrenaline junkies, they're long game tacticians. They have a plan, calculated courage. That's who agency owners are that truly scale. Next is the subtraction economy. You see, multiple owners that I've talked with hit the same truth. Scaling doesn't come from adding, it actually comes from subtracting. Fewer carrier relationships mean faster decisions. Fewer distractions means more execution. Fewer wrong fit people means higher ROI per seat. You've got to get rid of a bunch of things you're doing now to get there in one year instead of five. Let me unpack that for just a minute. If you want to get to your impossible goals or your big goals in one year instead of five, you've got to get rid of a bunch of things you're doing right now to get there in one year instead of five. Our Onix frames subtraction as a growth mechanic, not a discipline hack. Onyx isn't a about doing more, it's about removing friction at scale.

Next, let's talk about the early adapters. There's agencies that have been testing RPA scripts inside their agency management systems since before 2015, long before AI became a buzzword. They built macros, automations and certificate workflows. And it's proof that visionary independence innovate faster than enterprise organization. And that's you. Well done. You're ready right now. They were recording insurance processes long before AI vendors even existed. This validates that Onyx's thesis that agencies from 2 to 10 million in revenue will be the true innovators. And if you're not there yet, no worries. Let's scale starting right now. They move fast, they test early and they iterate faster than billion dollar roll ups who are many times buried in red tape.

The future of insurance innovation won't come from Wall street, it will come from you.

Make sure that you're one of them. Let's scale. Next, the adoption gap, which is also known as human friction.

Technology doesn't fail, people do. And I'm not saying technology is perfect, but a lot more often than people.

We never asked our account execs if they actually wanted us to save them time. We just innovated. One said some people Love their busy work. They don't want more time to call clients. Is your team full of A players? Your product will fail in the hands of the wrong people. True. Back to A players and your culture. AI and automation initiatives die because of cultural resistance, not technical failure. Onyx will build both systems and adoption models behavior behavioral frameworks that make AI stick. Here's an implementation rule though.

Anything that you implement, including onnx must include a people readiness filter. And our ONNX does. And that's our goal for you. To make sure your people are ready. If the wrong team installs AI, it's doomed. You must filter and train for AI compatible mindsets. Your cultural mindset is your skill set and you need to know all of these things before you begin to automate on a big scale level.

Next, it's the thinking within your organization. UPP thinking, 10x thinking, daily habits and more think. That's what we provide at upp. Structure. Structure to your organization. So you have a plan, a way of doing things through people, processes and promotion. Because ultimately scaling and 10x and more is truly easier. And it's simpler. You can't scale complexity first of all. And it's faster and better for focused and and delegation. Atomic habits for incremental consistency. Great book by James Clear. And the Power of three for simplicity and team alignment. Everybody should be working within their superpower, their personal gift, talent or superpower. I know somebody wrote a book on that.

These frameworks are overlap in mindset. Small daily habits plus focus on unique abilities plus structural accountability equals your compounding results. And it's results, not activities. Average agencies, they count the activities. Great agencies, they count the results. Make sure you're focused on the results.

Next time.

What's everybody doing with their most valuable resource?

It's the time compression. It's the ability to take a 10 year goal and compress it down to two years. And it's the question that everybody's asking how can I possibly do that?

Here's what many said. What would it take to get there in two years instead of 10?

They revealed the blockers. One said it was capital. Capital was in the way. One said it was north of 25 million. Now keep in mind this was an agency worth 15 million. Now at 30% EBITDA. When they get to 50 million, which is their big goal. Okay, 50 million.

50 million revenue at 30% EBITDA is $15 million. And this particular agency roughly 14 EBITDA equals $210 million.

Was it worth compressing your time? Next focus. They said we have to pick two key priorities and drop the rest. What are you willing to to eliminate? What are you willing to do? That's only, as we say, above the floor. Next. Leadership depth. We need better people in the right seats. Right person, right seat. According to Gino Wickman. Next. Cultural bandwidth. We can only push this hard for so long. The $1.4 billion revenue who was my client for 24 years started from scratch to 1.4 billion. He said, it's the balance within a team. The balance. Most had the vision, few had the bandwidth or the leadership architecture to actually execute fast.

Our core promise at onyx, we collapse 10 years of growth into 2 years without burning out the owner or the team.

What do you need to eliminate?

Next. Human inspiration, motivation and satisfaction.

It's the visible psychological split. You see, there's legacy focused leaders that want autonomy, that want impact and permanence, and then there's our younger operators. Thank you. And we need more of those people in their, say, 30s and 40s who want competition, who crave more innovation and ultimately seek validation. Let me give you some examples. I want to build a private equity level agency without private equity. I want to create a place that thrives without me. That's our goal.

I remember in my own independent insurance agency the day when our second in command said, mike, we don't need you anymore.

After I got over it for a second, I said, you don't need me anymore? She said, no, you can go ride your bike, play with your grandkids, help more agents. We don't need you. We'll let you know if we need you. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a wonderful place to be.

This reinforces our goal and the dual appeal of Onyx. Build something that outlives you, but prove that you can beat PE with brains.

Not capital.

Next. The right people. Blind spot.

Every single owner eventually said the same thing in different words.

The wrong people will kill your product, whatever your product is. Leadership is what's holding us back.

They said we need to replace tribal knowledge or historical knowledge. Same thing. Before it walks out the door.

Another. Our biggest problem is people who fade.

The top performers. No, People are the constant. My question for you, which of you is going to do something about it? Top agencies must make people people. Architecture a primary pillar. More on that in a bit.

Leadership bench. Cultural upgrade. Hiring systems, Attraction, recruiting and hiring systems, retention protocols and standards and team accountability. All critical to the right people. Blind spot.

Where are you right now and how can we improve?

Next. Many of these top agency leaders talked about faith they talked about surrender and they talked about purpose. I think this is important. You're also seeing deep personal integration among faith driven owners. It comes back to surrendering to the Lord. One said, I want to use my hands for his will. I don't need the glory. I want to be faithful. This is rare and powerful in today's circle of the world. It shows the moral framework that drives many successful agency leaders through their purpose, through their stewardship and their impact over their ego.

We want to authentically encourage faith driven leadership as part of the mindset that sustains impossible goals.

What's your bhag or impossible goal? I hope you're clear on it. Personally, I read mine every single morning and every single night out loud. Next, the topic leadership fatigue and fading.

Present in the industry. One of the most profound insights was why do leaders fade in and fade out?

Well, part of it is in my observation across North America.

The number one reason that people don't achieve what they set out to achieve personally and professionally is lack of consistency, lack of discipline, lack of a consistent plan in their lives. I hope you have a plan. I hope you do it every single day. I hope you start every single day with a plan that works for you. You. My plan probably doesn't work for everybody else and that's fine. But what is your plan and what are you doing every single day to stay consistent, to prepare yourselves for whatever may come your way? I'm off track. Let's get back to it. We invest deeply in someone for 90 days and then we fade away. Possibly meaning a new team member. Why is that? We assume 90 days is enough to train somebody. How often do Olympic champion athletes train? I ask that question a lot and the answer consistently is every single day, sometimes twice a day. Are you a world champion caliber business? Do you practice and train every day? Leadership and training. That's what we do with Onyx. We target the pain. We build the systems that prevent.

Leadership fade. That's why we provide you the real time dashboard.

Next, a very interesting phenomenon was the revenue math and a formula.

Take the max that you sell currently divided by your retention rate and you get the most your agency can grow. Case in point, let's say you have A revenue recent 12 month revenue of $130,000 divided by a retention figure. In this example, I was very conservative. I said 85%. And if you're higher than that, well done. And I many, many are. Okay, that's a maximum production potential of $152,000. So if you had 130,000 in revenue last year and many are above that. Well done. Revenue revenue, not premium revenue. All right. Divided by 85% retention equals 150 2009. 41. That's your potential capacity to grow. Is that enough?

What's your growth strategy? Organic acquisition? Both. How? Do you have a plan? Do you have your icp, your ideal client profile designed for your agency in those realms? How's the accountability in that realm? Simple but profound. But it shows the leverage of retention. Let me give you another piece of information that I learned from one of our high, high achieving agents. This agent calculated what every point of retention is worth and their multimillion dollar revenue agency about 3. Every single point of retention is worth $30,000.

Let that brick sit in your lap for a minute. And if you multiply that times the lifetime value of a client, which if you're doing good work, should be at least 5, 6, 7 years or more.

$30,000 per revenue point times 5, 6, 7 years.

30,000 times 7 years is $210,000 for every point.

The math fits perfectly into Onyx's revenue engine model. And it validates that focusing on retention plus productivity plus AI efficiency will get you to your scaling goal.

Here's another very interesting thought. Why aren't people doubling yet? And I asked specific questions of many leaders in this realm and the answers were brutally honest.

The limiter Leadership Capacity.

The quote Leadership is what's holding us back.

The next limiter Comfort.

We're doing well. Maybe I'm satisfied. Are you.

The next limiter People Readiness.

I don't know if my team would use the extra time productively.

Is that leadership? Is it training? Is it a players on your team or not?

The next limiter Energy owners only have so much entrepreneurial energy left. Hmm. How can we help that situation? Every agency system must must be designed to overcome these realities. Especially comfort fatigue and people drag.

The United Takeaway after asking many, many high performing agency owners specific questions surrounding all of these items, the multiplier for the agencies is.

Helping elite independent insurance agencies, premier independent insurance agencies compress 10 years of growth into two by multiplying leadership systems and automation without burning out the owner or selling out to private equity. Let me share with you the five Onyx framework pillars.

One, it's a focus engine subtraction.

Of doing things with clarity and execution.

Number two, the leadership engine people, delegation and succession depth.

Number three, the automation engine, AI RPA where appropriate and and operational leverage that actually sticks on a customized basis for an agency business. Number four, the revenue Engine retention, cross sell and the all important sales velocity.

Next, a legacy engine based on purpose.

Based on true freedom and.

Generational continuity.

You see Onyx or any other system that high achieving independent insurance agency owners are building. They're not just programs, they're movements within a business.

This is the next evolution of what it means to be a high performing premier independent insurance agency business. Because the goal, it's not just to scale. The goal is to free yourself and your teammates to lead, to give, to make an impact.

One of the people that I talked to, one of the high achieving agency owners, said, Mike, tell me more about what you're building. And I told him in great detail and he said, mike, you're going to impact a million people.

And he went into the weeds a little bit and helped me unpack what he meant.

What an honor. What a privilege. The future, it belongs to those who act now. To those who refuse to let time, to let systems or fear hold them back. To those who are ready to build unstoppable scaling agencies that truly scale faster, serve deeper and leave a legacy that outlives them.

If that's you.

Welcome home.

Welcome to Onyx. Scale faster, serve deeper, live freer.

Simply know this. Revenue does solve problems. And the future of independent insurance agencies has arrived. And the chosen few will be the ones that sees it. The future starts now.

It is my absolute.

Hope, goal and passion that you picked up some gold nuggets.

From those words that I just shared.

Everything that was shared by high achieving independent insurance agencies that I continue to collaborate with and serve through UPP and interview throughout the country.

Shared that information. I asked them seven questions and they answered them. What you just heard or just watched was a summary of how they did it, how they're doing it, and how they're truly scaling and growing a business, a special business.

And if you're doing it, great, well done, congratulations, keep doing it. And if you're not yet, no worries. Remember, the present is a gift. It's your starting point. Don't look back unless you plan to go there. Learn from it, but don't look back. Start now. The present, It's a gift. And look forward and start operating within your future self right now. Where do you want to be 1 year, 3 years, 10 years from now? Your impossible goal, what is it? Start operating today, like the agency that you want to become. And that's why we've created Onyx. I wanted to share that with you. If you want to have a deeper conversation about Onyx, simple. Shoot us an email. Shoot an email to vipplife.com VIP@uppl life.com Put the subject line onyx O N Y X and we can jump on a session. I can share more, but for those of you who are ready, we're ready to serve you and there's lots of agencies that are already doing it. Great job. Join us and become one of them. Until the next episode. Get out there, implement, execute and take action. And as a reminder, if you got great value out of this podcast, please share it with somebody else that you care about. Just go to unstoppableprofitpodcast.com share that link with somebody else you care about. Help them learn how they can join us up in the scaling atmosphere where it's rare air because most people, they're not willing to do what it takes. But I know that's not you. Okay, so share Unstoppable profit podcast with them. Share this episode with them and if you haven't done it yet, make sure you go up to the top. Click subscribe so you don't miss one valuable episode and make sure they do the same thing as well. Again, thanks for joining us. Until next time, get out there and do what it takes. Start eliminating things that are in your way. Get on the pathway that has signals illuminating the path to your bhags and your impossible goals and don't go down the path that's clouded, that has a bunch of noise or more shiny objects. That's not what's going to get you there. A plan backed by something special. I'll see you on the next episode.

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