Episode 58: Special Guest Chris Raders

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit podcast. 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, this is Mike Troms coming to you live from the Living Agency Laboratory. And I am here for our next episode, the Unstoppable Profit podcast. I could not be more pumped and excited for today's podcast because we are bringing in one of our high achieving, high performing agents from our platinum coaching programs who is absolutely doing phenomenal stuff, who has made great progress. And one of the things that people have been clamoring for is to learn more about how agents are making real progress. And in today's marketplace, and in the marketplace that we're in today, not only is it consistently changing, but it has become a new reality, as some are saying. So I am honored and privileged to have with me for the next few minutes in this particular podcast, the Unstoppable Chris Raiders. Chris, good morning.

Good morning, Mike. Thank you for having me today.

You're welcome. I am honored and privileged to have you on the podcast this morning. Chris Raiders is from Paso Robles, California. And before we get started and dig into the amazing accomplishments of Chris Raiders and his agency, let's have Chris, why don't you introduce yourself, tell our listeners a little bit about your industry background, who you are, and anything else you want to show this morning.

Well, thank you. You know, my dad was insurance my entire life, and I thought it was the worst thing I had ever heard of when I was growing up. I never understood what he was talking about. It was really boring. And I remember telling him that I was never, never going to go into insurance. And he always said, never say never. And I'm glad because he's absolutely correct. I got into Insurance about 19 years ago. I started out in Washington state and through a couple of life changes ended up in Paso Roble's lovely wine country. And it's a beautiful part of central California. And I'm very, very fortunate and blessed to be to be working with a great team. And I have my own agency now.

Yeah. And congratulations. And I think that the majority of the people that we get to speak with about, you know, how did you get into insurance? I will suggest the majority either resisted it or said insurance. Are you crazy? Not me. So I agree with you. I have that same beginning in the industry. Congratulations on the first 19 years and we are so grateful to be in this industry, which, albeit challenging. Right, Chris?

Yes, definitely.

It is very, very rewarding to protect people and everything they work so hard for. So, yeah, in Paso Robles, California. Beautiful, beautiful area. We've been privileged to spend some time there.

My wife and I still pinch ourselves. In fact, just last night sitting outside, it was gorgeous night, beautiful sunset, and we just said, can you believe that we live here? This is just a dream come true.

It's perspective. Right, Chris? Yep. I mean, yeah, I've been doing a lot of study lately on leadership and how to continue to reach that next level. And. And what I've identified is a lot of people, we've got to have the right perspective. If we have the right perspective, everything else will follow. Speaking of perspective, I love your outlook on how you're going to continue to grow your agency, position your agency as a leading agency in the regions that you choose to do business in. So we met, I'll suggest, two, three, four years ago.

Do you remember how we met?

Well, actually, Mike, I don't know if you remember this, but we met even further back almost 15 years ago when I put out a question about what to do about bookkeeping for an insurance agency, and you sent me directly that you thought that needed to be outsourced, and that should not be something we should be doing in our office. And.

I took that to heart. And that was the very first time that I knew who Mike Stromso was.

Wow. Did it help?

Absolutely.

Good. Good. Fantastic. Well, forgive me, I didn't remember it was that long ago, but I'm glad we encountered each other back then. And since then, we've gotten to know each other quite well. And I know you first came to one of our boot camps, and I remember you, and I admire the fact that you were right there in the front row taking copious notes, because that's been a huge part of my evolution in my personal development. Growth is I like to get right there in the front row and pay attention and take copious notes so I can go back and implement. And I know you do that as well. So at our boot camps, you made a decision to join our platinum coaching program. Can you reflect back on what some challenges were before you started in platinum?

You know, I always say I didn't know what I didn't know. The thing is, I knew I didn't.

Know what I didn't know.

Does that make any sense at all? I know it's confusing, but yes, it does, actually. And so realizing how much I Didn't know. I know I wanted to be a better agent. I know I wanted to have a better agency. I wanted to be a better leader, wanted to inspire my team. I wanted to provide better service to our clients.

I wanted to make more money. And I wanted our business to grow. And not just grow, but I want us to thrive. And.

How was I going to do that? What were the steps? And I was searching for answers, and that is how I led to be at my first boot camp and why I committed to joining the platinum program.

So you're searching for some answers, and I'm sure there's a lot of options out there as to.

Paths you can follow, so to speak. So what led you to make a decision to align with UPP and become a member of UPP over and above? Maybe some other options that might have been out there.

I'm really glad you asked that, because I put a lot of time and thought into that. There are a lot of options that are out there. But I wanted to work with somebody and learn from somebody who actually works in insurance, who actually has an agency, who's actually gone through these. The theory part is great, and there's tons of books, and I read them, but I want to know an actual person who's living this. And that is you, Mike. You know, you still work in your own agency. You still work on your agency, and that's why I committed to your program. Well, thank you.

And thank you. We're honored and privileged to have that opportunity to stand by your side. And that's why we affectionately call it the Living Agency Laboratory. So that's where it all happens. We've been there, done that. We're still doing it. And thank you for allowing us to share with you. So your agency was at a point a couple of years ago when we started working together. And as a result of working together and your investment in yourself.

How'S your agency changed and what's happening today?

You know, I don't know how to even describe the change in our business from where we are and where we're going. I would say that, you know, we were comfortable and we were making. We were making. Making some growth. But what was the plan? I mean, it just happened. It was just organic. You show up, you take care of clients, they pay you money, and you hope that each year it's a little bit more.

But there was no. There was no plan. There was no, what are we trying to achieve? What's our. What's our big three goals that we want to do? Where do we want to be in five years? And you know, that's, that is what the platinum program has taught me, to look at things completely different. Not to live from day to day, but to have a plan going forward. And I'll be honest, plans don't always work out. And you know from our one to one meetings that, you know, there's always something happening in the industry that's going to change. Whether you've got non renewals or you've got the COVID 19 virus. We all have to adjust our lives but our planning and our training go with that. That is what the Platinum program has helped me change for my business.

That's fantastic. And yeah, if we want things to change, we get to change. Right? Right. And you know, one of my all time favorites is Benjamin Franklin said, if you're failing to plan, you're planning to fail. And that's one of the many, many, many attributes that I admire about you so much Chris, is you do plan and you do project and you're always seem to be ready for the next step because of your planning. So kudos to you on that. So.

Your agency, when you took ownership of the agency, you were in a position in your local marketplace as a farm agency. And because of your growth and your forecasting of where you want your agency to be, that shifted. Right.

You know, that's an amazing story because our culture has always been, for the past 40 years, we are an agricultural agency and that's just been the culture. And you know, we've been building since I joined the agency seven years ago, we've been building the commercial side which lends to, you know, the farm component because there's a lot of the commercial that ties in with farm. But at one point, you know, we actually surpassed the farm side in commercial. And then of course things change in your marketplace and where we are in the central coast, we've had a lot of non renewals from insurance carriers because of their concern for fire risk. And I shared with you in our one to one meetings, on our one day meeting that gosh, I'm fighting to maintain this culture and I'm trying to keep us the way we've been the last 40 years. And it was actually.

In our one day meeting and then it followed up with one of our mastermind meetings. It's like, you know what, it is okay to grow outside of that original culture. It is okay to become something different than what you've been the past 40 years. And so we're not, we're not throwing our Farm culture away, but we're growing outside of that, and now we're embracing that. We are a commercial agency, and that's where the growth opportunities lie right now. And that is where we are moving.

Fantastic. And you made the shift. You've also created the team and restructured the team to make that shift. In my study of high achievement reinvention, and sometimes moving people from one seat to another seat to get them in the right seat is part of that shift. And you've experienced that. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

So you always imagine that the people that you have with you are always going to be with you, and sometimes that doesn't work out. And we lost some. Some people immediately after I took ownership of the agency. And so it was a scramble to bring on new team members. And if you were to go past the, you know, if you're going to go back three years, we were a very old agency. We had an older group of people. And if you skip forward to today, we are a very young agency. We have a very young group of people. And there are. And that's not to say that having older members is not a value. I absolutely treasure the members that have been with us for a long time. But our team members who are newer and younger have excitement and they want to learn and they want to. And they want to do a good job. And I'm excited just to come in each day and figure out what new thing they're going to learn. It's very exciting. And that transformation happened in a very short period of time. And I wouldn't have seen that coming three years ago, but I'm actually grateful that it did because it made it possible for us to pivot from our culture as a solely farm farm operation to now commercial farm. And that's with the help of upp, you and my mastermind members.

Yeah. And on a recent group call, you were so, and remain so on fire for the position that you've grown to, even through this time of great uncertainty, where people, they don't have any idea what their next step is going to be. You are crystal clear on that. And I saw that in your eyes and heard it in your words, and I was so happy for you. And that is fantastic. And that is just one of the many reasons that I wanted to make sure that we were able to share just a little bit about your story and your evolution. So.

Chris, do you have anything else that you'd like to share?

Well, I mean, there's so many things that.

The platinum program has given me and not least our time together in our one day meeting. And for anyone who's listening to this, who's trying to figure out, well, what, you know, really, what do you get out of this, out of this program?

Those one day meetings, I compress an enormous amount of questions that I come prepared and I mean we literally hammered out from the start in the morning. And I mean we could take breaks and we could take lunch, but I don't want to, I just want to keep going because I want to get as much out of our time together as possible. And they have, they have totally helped me focus in where I want to go by being able to talk to an, an agency owner, a successful agency owner who has lived it and experienced it and that has made, that has really helped out a lot. But the other side of the coin of this program is the access to a mastermind group of agency owners who generally are, I can say are actually all smarter than I am. And we all meet in person twice a year, which is probably the most outstanding way to interact and share and learn and train. And then we meet also via web meeting on Zoom multiple times per year. And there is nothing like being able to share and ask hard questions and get hard answers with peers who may have experienced the very problem that you're going through right now and have great advice for you. And then there's training sessions from you that you give via Zoom multiple times per year, recorded interviews, training sessions not only from you, but from other industry thought leaders. And then we never talk about this, but the electronic storehouse of documents, processes, advertisements, programs that you can, that you can adopt as your own. And then also boot camp, which is the super bowl of insurance training. And it's where you have contact with agency owners throughout North America, not just the United States, but also Canada. Triple A speakers and special Platinum only members training sessions. And then finally, of course, help and assistance and encouragement from Andrea Wyatt, who's the guardian angel of the Unstoppable Producer Profit Producer program.

I couldn't agree with that more. Andrea Wyatt, our program director, is, you know, we in our own personal development training. And this is kind of a fun share and I think I shared this with the group recently because it just happened in our own personal development and training, in our own Mastermind Growth and evolution. We were coined as I'm the talk, she's the rock. And that that could not be more true. Somebody in our mastermind circle said that, hey, we, we got you guys figured out. You're the talk. And she's the rock. I said, yeah, she is the rock and she's the rock behind a lot of these things that are happening, including the production of this podcast episode. Chris, you have been absolutely very, very generous in sharing so far and where you've been in your agency. And again, it's been such an honor and a privilege to watch you grow. Thinking about the three Ps, the people, the processes and the promotions and, and how they line up. You've taken the people, you've transformed your agency and the people and their direction through your leadership development. Anything to add on the people portion?

I'm just, I am so excited for the future. I mentioned it before that, you know, we've worked hard and people, for those who aren't familiar what people process and procedures stand for, the People doesn't stand for customers. It stands for our people. It stands for our agency team members. And.

I feel so confident right now that we're poised to do great things and we're going to have a good year. Even with the shelter in place and the COVID virus, we're going to come out swinging and I think we're going to do good things before the end of this year is over.

Yeah, we are right by your side. You know, it is kind of difficult to say in a public environment right now, but yeah, we are also doing quite well this year. And the other thing that we want to do is we want to share that with other people to encourage them as well. And the other thing that I have learned about the people portion, Chris, in addition to the team, it is us also. Right? Right. It's our own personal development and we, if we want to lead teams and, and lead them into greatness, the greatness that's within them according to the great Les Brown. You know, we've got to continue to get better as well, correct?

Absolutely.

Yeah. And we get to develop that through our masterminding and our calls and our one to one calls and our one day sessions and everything surrounding that. So we got the people, the processes and the promotions and now you've got the right people in place. Your agency is lined up and ready to step up to the plate and swing that bat nice and hard. Because you've got the people in the process in place which are always ongoing and ever evolving. Would you agree?

Absolutely. And every day is an adjustment to that. But if you have a plan in place, you adjust as things happen. And we have a plan and all of our team members have a plan. And we started a playbook two years ago immediately after coming back from training.

From our boot camp. Because we want everybody on the same page, everybody understand what our goals are, what we're trying to achieve, and why it's important. Not just because it's important to me, but why it's important for each and every team member as well.

Yeah. Fantastic. And now you are set and ready to double down on the promotion side.

We are working.

Yep. Go ahead.

So we're. So we. We have created a number of promotions to not only interact with our own clients, but. But. But the client. But people that could potentially be clients in our community. And so we do. We do a number of promotions, and each year we add a new one that we think of as. As interest to the community that.

Helps provide a positive image for our agency and our industry. We want people to know that we live here, we love living here, and we want to give back any way we can. And so we do that with multiple promotion programs, which also, I have to say that I've stolen from a number of my Mastermind members.

And that's what we want you to do. We want you to borrow and steal S and D it, as we've said over the years, steal and deploy onto your marketplace, customize it and make it your own. And that's the beauty of our entire program. We're all just sharing information. I've said for years that there's nothing new under the sun, and there's really not. It's what we do with it and how we make it part of our brand. And I can see that through your digital evolution, which is, I know, in the beginning stages, but I would also suggest that as you continue to evolve, your digital evolution now, you've really figured it out where you want to go and who you want to be as an agency, we should start to build that brand as well. And I'm so, so excited for your future. So, Chris, and starting to wrap up today. Thank you for your time, by the way.

Thank you.

So as a result of investing in yourself and becoming more and learning so much, I mean, how's your life changed?

So everybody always says my life has changed. And, you know, we all, we always hear that, but mine has changed. It has gone from a point where I told you in the very beginning, I didn't know what I didn't know, and to some sense, I still don't know a lot of things. And I accept that that's always going to be the case. But with my UPP and my Mastermind team and with those resources, I have A place to go to ask for questions. And.

If you really want to change and you want to bring about change.

This is the program that will help you make that happen. It will allow you to live life in the ways that you want to live and run your business more efficiently, more successfully, make more money. Before it was just me, I was alone. And now I have the resources of.

Some of the best agencies in this country.

Well, I think you're being way too humble. And I heard you say something a couple of minutes ago that made me also think the same thing. You, Chris, are becoming a leading agency not only in your region, but across North America because of who you become. I know we talk about this inside the walls of masterminding and one days and all that, but if we want to have more, we have to become more because we attract exactly what we are and who we've become. And you, sir, it's just been an honor, a privilege and a treat to watch you continue to evolve. So excited for your future. Congratulations on your success so far. And yeah, it's going to be another exciting year and beyond. So, Chris, thank you for your time today. Before we wrap it up, is there anything else you'd like to add? Anything? Well, thank you for everybody listening out there.

Thank you, Mike, for investing in this program and investing in your partner agencies and agents. And thank you for running a great business.

You've shared a lot with everyone else and I think we're all better because of it.

Well, thank you. Thank you.

Chris Raiders, Paso Robles, California. An evolving superstar agency in the west coast region. Thank you for investing time today. Congratulations on your success in all three realms of people, processes and promotion. And as we believe in upping, you've got to attract excellent people and get only the best onto your team. Install world class processes and systems and then just promote the heck out of your business. You will grow your business, create financial wealth and security for you and your family, and you will have more time to live life on your own terms, which are all things that Chris was alluding to. So, Chris Raiders, congratulations. Thank you for being a very special guest on the Unstoppable Profit podcast.

Thanks, Mike.

You're welcome, sir. Hey everybody, that's listening. If you have any questions about our programs or anything, Please contact us 8007-7099-8480-0770-9984 or go to unstoppableprofitproducer.com and don't forget, Chris was also talking about the Boot camp. The Boot Camp happens annually it is the. Thank you Kris. I love that term. The super bowl of insurance growth and training. Beunstoppablebootcamp.com that's beunstoppablebootcamp.com don't miss it. And friends, thank you for joining us on this episode of the Unstoppable Profit podcast. We are going to be bringing on some of the top agency entrepreneurs like Chris from all over North America over the coming episodes. So stay tuned and I strongly suggest that you listen to this one again. Take copious notes because.

Chris Raiders continued to drop gold nugget after gold nugget. Thank you Chris. Have a phenomenal one of a kind day sir.

All right everybody get out there, make a difference, be unstoppable, leave no regrets and I will see you on 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.