Episode 37 : Become The Leader You Would Follow Part 1

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 Production Motion. 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.

Greetings and welcome to episode 37 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 becoming the leader that you would want to follow. This is going to be a two part podcast. I've been teaching this all over the country and it has been received by very, very well. And I thought, of course all of you need to know about this. So I'm going to take it, take you through it in two parts and I hope that it helps you. Don't forget you got to have an analog data recorder and an analog data recording device to write all the notes that you need to. That's AKA a pencil and a piece of paper or a writing device and a piece of paper. But what gets written down across the out gets done. So make sure you make lots of notes as they apply to you and more importantly, implement, execute and take action every, every day. And everything that you do to continue to get better. In our own Living Agency Laboratory, it's GEBD this year because getting better every day is what counts. G, B E D. Getting better every day. And that's what it's all about. So let's dive in. Today we're going to talk about becoming the leader that you would follow. You know, one of my great leadership studies, along with John Maxwell, Jim Collins, Howard Schultz and a host of others, has been Simon Sinek. Simon Sinek said leadership is a way of thinking, a way of acting, and most importantly, a way of communicating. And it's really at the end of the day, that's what it's all about. People are watching your every move. If you think they're not, I call bs. They're watching your every move. You got to be aware of that all the time. And so you have to be. If you're a leader in any organization, you have to be critically aware of that. And sometimes, hey, some things are better left unsaid. I was taught by my parents in the early days. So let me share with you today the four keys to leading a successful team. Part of those we'll get into today. The next will come in part two, the four keys to leading a successful team. And remember, the definition of team is together, everybody achieves more. Together, everybody achieves more. All right, number one, ready, training and coaching. It's all about training and coaching your world class team. Number two, team motivation. All right. Motivation is just like bathing. It's recommended daily. You've got to be the motivator for your world class team. Number three, team accountability. Yes, we have to install effective accountability within your organization. And number four, it's all about developing leaders all around you. You're. You've got to develop leaders all around you and our particular organization. I am looking every way, every day with our leadership team and developing leaders around me so that I can do what I do. My top three personal talents and gifts, I want to be exercising those. I want them to do the same thing. Let's talk about number one, which is training and coaching, training and coaching your world class team. According to Zig Ziglar, the only thing that is worse than training a person that leaves is not training a person and having them stay, right? So we've got to be consistently training and coaching our world class teams within our organizations. Because at the end of the day, think about it like this. How often do world class sports teams practice? Every single day. How often do you know, great students study? Every single day. You know, we have a big saying in our hall, in our living agency laboratory on a big whiteboard. It says, practice like you've never won and perform like you've never lost. Practice like you've never won. Perform like you've never lost. We strongly recommend that every day as well. So let's dive in to the training and coaching. We have a visual within our coaching and training systems, within our living agents laboratory. It's a chart and it dictates where everybody's at. Not dictates, that's a poor word, by the way. I would eliminate that word from my vocabulary anywhere in the leadership realm because it's not part of being a leader. We have an organizational chart. If you Will that determines the right seat for everybody. That's a better term that determines the right seat for everybody. And it starts with the new hire training. So new hire training, they go to commercial lines, to personal lines, to to marketing, to admin. We actually have an integrator in our organization as well and that's at the top. Then we go down to commercial line, CSR producer, processor, same thing in personal line, CSR producer and processor. And then we have marketing assistance assistance. We have admin assistants. One of the positions under the admin is the director of welcome as well. That's where it falls within our organization. And then we have a full on training.

Platform that it was designed by our leadership team that goes on for weeks at a time and that's just the beginning. Before we put them in a seat where they're going to interface with clients, our prospects or our communities. These training things are absolutely critical. So that's the beginning of Sia University. After that becomes the training outline which digs into what happens on day zero of day of week one, what happens week one through three, what happens week four, what happens week five and what happens week six. If you want to know a little bit about what might happen in those particular weeks. Week zero beginning on day one it's just basic new hire training. We have a complete regimen that we train them on as we introduce them to our agency. By the way before they show up on day one they have been alright for lack of a better term marketed to in a big way. We send them thank you notes. We send them an introductory video which is seven minutes recorded by me about the history of the agency. We've sent them gifts. We have a full on balloon bouquet gift bag welcome series for when they first come into the office. First day including an inspiring happiness T shirt plus plus plus we make them feel like they are home. One of the things that many other UPP members have been doing also or I've heard out there in the really uber successful business world is some teams actually take that person to lunch the first day with some of their other key team members and those key team members just build relationship with them. It's E plus F equals C. It's R plus T equals mft. It's about the experience plus the feeling that's generated equals the connectedness. But ultimately at the end of the day it's about the relationship that's built which equals the trust.

Week one through three is basic training. Week four becomes internal training within the agency. Week five, then we begin the insurance Training, yes, it takes that long, my friends. That's why you hire slow and fire fast. And week six is client training. So there's a whole arena of things that are going to take place in your training outline as you continue to move down the road. Week two through three, as an example, we put them through module educational modules from some of the processes and systems that we've developed within our agency. So they can do some self training, then we do Q and A, some more self training, some Q and A with lots of interactive dialogue with team members to make sure that they are following the training checklists that we have developed within our organization. If you walked around our office, you'd see multiple playbooks. I'm looking at a playbook for the director of Allcom, which is the thickest, most complicated one we've got because that's got the most moving parts. We have a processor's book for personal and commercial. Then we have the million dollar sales producer playbook for people on the sales team that are dealing in that particular realm. So in our particular world we call them playbooks. Playbooks is what it's in. So because we like to have fun. Alright then, for the personal development sector, we have developed in our agency, our very own library. And this library is not only designed for the team members, but it's also designed for the community members out there in our communities if they want to come by and you know, just hang out and investigate how we learn what we learned. We've got a full on library. They can check out books and take them with them and bring them back and because we know that knowledgeable people are progressive and growing people, you know, if you learn from one of my greatest mentors, Mr. Jim Rohn, if you want to have more, you've got to become more. It's really that simple. So we want to help people, people within our communities become more. Okay, so that's number one, training and coaching and we've got the whole foundation set up. It's all about the forced account, enforced accountability which we're going to talk about in step three. Alright, so that's step one. Step two, team motivation. And I said earlier, motivation is like bathing, it's recommended daily. Motivation, inspiration, training, practice, it's all like bathing and it's all recommended daily. Alright, so what are you doing to make sure that you effectively insert that motivation to your living agency laboratory? Well, the first thing that we do as an organization, and it's been ongoing for many, many years, is affectionately the Wheel of Fortune. It is our wof, our Wheel of Fortune. And I just saw our leadership team yesterday working on updating the sheets for our Wheel of Fortune. Because it's an ongoing work in progress. Don't think that you can just create it and launch it out there and think it's going to be, you know, create some kind of magic. It doesn't work that way, my friends. It's you got to do the work. Alright, so our Wheel of Fortune, our team loves this morning get together. It's on the third Wednesday of every month, unless there's something else that brewing, if you will. And we get together in the lobby, we have a very special phenomenal time earning the praise and recognition and rewards that they've earned. We have sheets and all they have to do is perform certain activities within the organization, complete their sheets and they get to step up and spin the Wheel of Fortune. So we have a lot of fun with it. The good news is I've got somebody other than myself doing it nowadays, which is a huge treat for me because they've earned the right and I'm good with that too. So the other cool thing about the Wheel of Fortune, it's an opportunity. By the way, I know what I was going to say. Praise and recognition. That's so important. Please write this down and please write what I'm going to say next down as well. There's two things that people want more than money and sex. I learned this from Nordstrom's a couple of months ago when I was traveling. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I sitting on an airplane and I heard this and I go, omg, I had to stop it. I rewound it so I could hear it again. What they just said, they said, yes, there's two things that people want more than money and sex. Like Willy Wonka and the original Willy Wonka. I can't think of what they are, but I'm just kidding, just kidding. There's two things that people want more than money and sex. It's praise and recognition. Praise and recognition. So praise them and recognize them in every way possible. And that's just part of the support the Wheel of Fortune. The other thing is we've got lots of, you know, visuals that are coming in. Lots of other UPP coaching members have implemented the Wheel of Fortune in their particular organizations. And we're getting pictures and reports back all the time on the great success they're having within their organization. By the way, if you've got multiple offices, don't use that as an excuse. Remember an excuse Is like, name your body part, everybody's got one, and they all stink. So at the end of the day, you know, you can do this virtually. You can do it via camera. Anything's possible, my friend. So, you know, don't use it as an excuse. It's just a phenomenal time, okay? Another thing that we can do from a motivational standpoint and just be creative. I mean, we have an entire documented, fun program in our organization. We just do things for the sake of having fun. We have a JAR program within our office, you know, and it's got a sheet that goes with it. We put $21 bills on people's desks, and if they perform the activity of their particular month, all they do simply is take out a dollar for every time they perform the activity. Or you can say $3 for an activity. It's up to you. It's your business. You do whatever you want.

I'm looking at the sheet for the entire year. And one of the things for July, because that's the time when everybody's on vacation. Ask someone what their favorite vacation spot is. That's a wonderful, wonderful question in many, many ways. And we actually document our agency management system with that information. Because think about it like this. Have you ever had a situation with a client? You're on the phone with them, and it's not too pleasant a conversation, right? When you look up that spot in your agency management system, you go, oh, by the way, Mr. Mrs. Client, when's the last time you were in Maui? And they'll go, wow. Why do you ask? I said, well, you know, I was looking through the notes, and I found that you liked a vacation in Maui. And I was just curious when the last time you were there was. And they'll go, oh, man, we were there last year, and it was so awesome. See, you've brought them to a place where you can continue the conversation with a huge positive interjection. So, you know, tell clients other topics for the months. Tell clients about Flag day celebration. You know, ask someone their favorite vacation spot. Fire safety month, Breast cancer awareness month. You get the gist. Every month is an opportunity to have a connection with somebody in a very special way. So. And you just give them an incentive, which is a dollar bill every time that they do that. You know, I have found in my journey, a lot of people, it's not all about the amount of money. It's just the little rewards that will spark those things to happen. And it's just a huge positive. There's lots of other Bonus opportunities you can exercise in your own agency business. You know, you can bonus or incentivize. By the way, let's back up for a minute. I also just got done reading a phenomenal book called Ownership Thinking. I believe the guy's name is Brad Hamster. And I learned that if I had to do this all over again, I would not call it a bonus, I would call it an incentive. An incentive. Other incentive opportunities for your organization, referrals, premium increases, number of applications, rounding accounts, B of RS or AORs. Just ask your team, say, hey, I'm looking to create some incentives within our organization. What do you all suggest that we do? And it's really that simple. So incentivize, incentivize, Incentivize wherever possible. Another success. Some of the team members have had such great success through incentive programs that are all jacked up. They win lots of cool prizes and stuff. I've seen where team members of our UPP members actually go out and post it on their own social media platform saying, hey, I won. And I've got plenty of gift cards here for you. Be the third caller to call me for a quote today. And I'm going to give you everything I won this morning. I mean, they're turning it around and using it to their own benefit instead of keeping it for themselves. The law of reciprocity is always in effect. The law of reciprocity is always in effect. And if you want a resource about the law of reciprocity, I'm currently reading again, the book influenced by Robert Cialdini. I got to meet Cialdini a few years ago. Phenomenal stuff. But it talks a lot about reciprocity there. Great, great stuff. Have an attitude of gratitude. The attitude of gratitude always wins, especially when you're sitting in the leadership chair. And the other word I want you to write down today is spontaneity. Spontaneity. See, when you do things spontaneously without any expectation of something in return, and you launch your heart and your soul to your team in that particular manner, it's noticed. So you know something that I've done in the past. I'm looking at a note that I created that I gave to everybody in our team. I said, attitude is everything, imho, which means in my humble opinion. I've noticed recently that the overall team spirit right now is as good as I've seen in a while. I look for them doing things right. I don't look for them doing things wrong. I look for them doing things right, not necessarily looking for things doing wrong. I feel it's important to reward such efforts because I've come to believe with all of my heart that results will follow such mindset. Remember, your mindset is your skill set. Right. All of you are to be commended. Please keep it up as we are making a difference. Big smiley face. Big smiley face. And attached to that note for every team member was simply a 100 bill. And, you know, a lot of the team members, they were just blown away. They were going, oh, my God, he's noticing. He's watching, you know, he notices what's going on around here, of course. And reward the behavior that you want to happen again and again and again. Reward the behavior that you want to happen again and again and again. Got it?

Good.

Okay. Handwritten thank you cards to your team, to their house, not necessarily to their chair or their desk or why? Because if they're at work, they're not going to pay any attention to it when it arrives at their house. Then they will pay attention. They'll go, oh, that's cool. Thank you. And because that's the time that they have to take a look at this. All right. I've got people on our team who saved this stuff for years on end because they feel so appreciated that I would just take a minute to write them a note. I'm looking at one right now. It says, so thankful for you, by the way. Get rid of the word I and we. Get rid of the word I and we. You've got to write in the trigger word tense. All right. So thankful for you that you are part of our team. So appreciate you taking great care of our clients, our prospects in our communities. Happy, happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. Gratefully. P.S. what more can I do for you, by the way? What more can I do for you? I say that all the time. I got a killer, killer testimonial from an event coordinator that I recently worked with by just continuing to drop that phrase. And when we got ready to leave, the event coordinator said, by the way, Mike, what more can I do for you? And I said, oh, I'm so happy you asked. And I positioned that person to record a killer video testimonial. I don't know if I'm do with it yet. It doesn't matter. I've got it. And it was phenomenal. Off the hook. So grateful for that. So, you know, these are the kind of things when I get ready to leave on vacation or I'm going to be out of the office for an extended period of time, I find reasons to Leave motivation there. The other thing that we've created in our living agency laboratory that we've launched to our team is our. We'd love to get to better. We'd love to get to know your better form. We want to learn all about them. We want to find out how our team likes to be recognized and praised or rewarded for a job well done. That's something we started. Because we've been doing this for so long, we kind of ran out of ideas. And so we wanted to know what is on their heart, what would make them feel that in a very special way. So we created that. We celebrate our team on their anniversaries, their birthdays. We shut the office down and go to lunch. We shut the office down today and did team pictures because it's so vitally important to celebrate team together. Everybody achieves more. We have the Christmas gratitude breakfast that we've been doing for years. Just amazing, amazing stuff. And it's something that came from my culinary background. Started working the restaurant business when I was 12. And I do it out of a gift of gratitude from my heart to my team for that Mardi Gras celebrations. We all have nicknames in our agency with nicknames on their team shirts. We had a core value celebration party this year to kick off the year by our leadership team. The good news. Good news. Yeah. I got thrown out of the meeting. I wasn't even in it, so. And when you meet the agency goals in a big way, go big. All right. We rented a bus to take the entire team and their spouses to Vegas. It was absolutely off the hook and it was a one of a kind, phenomenal event that was absolutely fantastic. And my friends, it comes back in tenfolds more than I can tell you. I've got some visuals of just my entire office being, you know, decorated off the hook. The words that come back, I can't even begin to tell you where my heart is. When that happens. I'm looking at a note from a new team member. We do a 30 day sprint in our organization. When somebody comes on the team for the first 30 days, we ask them to just write at the end of every day. No right or wrong answers. Grammar is not important, or spelling is not important. We just want them to tell us what happened that particular age, good, bad, or indifferent, because it lets us know how to train them. Okay. My biggest takeaway today was previously. One of my biggest frustrations was the lack of mentoring and approachability that was not present at my last job. After the team meeting, the marketing meeting and the PX3 meeting. I'm very overwhelmed by the time and enthusiasm that has been shown for the entire team to succeed, both as a group and individually. So thank you for being the great people that you are. That was the words of a person on their third day. How flipping awesome is that? My friends, I hope this has inspired you today. I hope it gives you something that you can. You can. You don't. It's not. You can implement this right now. Starting today, wherever you're at, all of this you can immediately implement. Okay, stay tuned for episode 38. We're going to dive into part two of how to be the leader that you would want to follow. Alright? So stay tuned for episode 38. Thank you so much. This is Mike Stromceau coming to you live from the Living Agency Laboratory. Go out there and make a difference. Be unstoppable. Leave no regrets. I will catch up with you soon. 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.un.unstoppableprofitpodcast.com. now go out and make a difference. Be unstoppable and leave no regrets.