Blogroll Archives | Page 8 of 20 | OLD : UPP Coaching by Mike Stromsoe

How to Earn and Ask for More Referrals

Posted on January 18, 2018June 12, 2019 by Mike Stromsoe

Referral and Marketing Ideas

There are a few business owners who hate asking for referrals, often feeling that they’re bothering clients or that they’re asking too much. While this is normal to feel and certainly not wrong, referrals are a valuable resource that every business can benefit from. In essence, we all like to recommend quality companies and products to each other because it’s a way of helping one another. While many businesses, particularly insurance agents, are never taught how to ask for referrals in an effective and comfortable manner, we’ve compiled a few tips to get you on your way.

Make a Referral Reward Program

A referral reward program is an established system you use to thank clients who refer your agency. It can include a variety of ideas, but the important element of it is that the client gets something out of it – whether it’s a special thank you note, a discount, or gift.

Get in Your Clients’ Cell Phones

Does your client have your contact details saved on their phone? If they don’t, they’ll be less likely to recommend you to a friend since they won’t have your name and number easily saved. Make sure that they have your information by reminding them how useful it is to have it programmed in, as well as offering to do it for them!

Hand Out Referral Cards

Make up some cards with your logo, agency contact information, and a spot that says. ‘Referred by ____’. Handwrite your client’s name in the blank space and give it to them to pass along.

Update Your Email Signature

Your email signature is a block of text that shows up automatically at the bottom of your emails. Many businesses have a link to their website along with contact details. There are great places to request a referral because it is so easy for the recipient to forward it along. Ensure that this information is correct, visible, and easily accessible for your client.

Get Clients to Like Your Facebook Page

The average person on Facebook has 130 friends. Imagine if you could get just a few people a week to post about your agency! Ask them to like your Facebook page by sending them a message, email, or voicing it to them next time you chat. Make sure that the content you post is share-worthy, too!

Ask!

Need we say more?

To learn more about how to be successful, contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program. We can offer guidance, helping you perfect your professional posture. We also offer a premier wealth creation program that helps you to work less, earn more, and enjoy life.

Should You Provide a Written Guarantee?

Posted on January 11, 2018June 12, 2019 by Mike Stromsoe

Giving Your Clients Peace of Mind

I decided that giving our customers peace of mind about their decision to purchase a new policy could never be a bad idea. So, I wrote a simple, no-frills, and no-hidden-clauses guarantee that states:

“If you’re not happy with your service with us, or if we do anything that you’re not satisfied with, just call us or write to us, and we’ll cancel your policy and return to you the unused portion of your premium.”

I don’t use terms like short rate or pro rate. I keep it simple and written in layman’s terms. It also includes an ongoing guarantee, and it’s all in writing and handed to clients with the rest of their paperwork when they sign their new policy or policies with us.

Guarantees can be powerful enough on their own—but then we took ours a few steps further. First, we had all of our team members sign the master copy. Those signatures are now on every copy of the guarantee that our customers receive. Our team knows that their signature is on there to back up the guarantee and say to clients, “We’re here to deliver above and beyond expectations and take good care of our customers.” That knowledge makes them feel accountable for the service and the satisfaction that our customers receive. I also believe it makes them work that much harder to ensure that our customers feel valued and important.

Then, we added our BBB^® and Trusted Choice^® logos to the document and had it notarized, which makes it even more “official” looking. The guarantee goes out with almost every piece of correspondence we send (both email and hard copy). We call it our “Triple Guarantee” that includes our Money Back Guarantee, our Continuing Guarantee, and our No Pressure, No Hassle Promise. People just want to know that you stand behind your words and actions. Our triple, ironclad guarantee is just one more way that we can show (not just say) that we will deliver on promises and ensure satisfaction.

Contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program for a premier wealth creation program that will help you work less, earn more, and enjoy life!

Why to Initiate Offsite Team Meetings

Posted on January 4, 2018June 12, 2019 by Mike Stromsoe

How Team Meetings Are Essential to Your Business

Winston Churchill once said, “The war was not won through the plan, the war was won with the planning.” You and your business reach higher levels and grow faster because you meet and plan with the like-minded people in your organization and connect with them in a way that produces synergistic results.

In short—the sum is greater than its parts.

I’ve discovered one of the fastest and most effective ways to produce that synergy within my team—and that is to conduct regularly scheduled off-site team meetings. We choose a day when a lot of people are off work (typically a bank holiday), and we’ll shut the office down and travel somewhere nearby. I prefer it to be somewhere pleasant, like a country club or plush meeting room. We go and make a day of it with a special lunch and a featured speaker who can infuse the team with fresh insight and inspiration.

Your team sees you all year long—this meeting is about being new and different. If you have kids or remember being one yourself, you’ve probably noticed that children and young adults have a bad habit of ignoring advice from their parents. Then a coach, friend, or teacher will tell them the exact same thing, and they can’t stop talking about how “genius” that person is (as though they are hearing this advice for the first time). It’s human nature’s fault—if we hear advice from the same person over and over again, we tend to tune that person out. That’s why we bring somebody in from the outside who has a new, exciting, unique message that they’ve “never heard before,” and they tend to stand up and take notice.

We brought in an outside speaker to our off-site meeting a few years ago who was an agency principal from another state. He drove in and spent the night at our home the night before so we could talk about what we wanted to accomplish. We created an agenda for the meeting, and we went into the next day with a solid itinerary. His ideas were well received, to say the least. A week later, my team was still starting sentences with, “Well, Stan said that…” His words were like Gospel. They held on to every idea and took his advice to heart. If they had heard the same information from me (their “dad” in our little analogy), I am not sure it would have had the same powerful effect.

Plan your off-site meetings well in advance. Contact the venue or venues you are considering and take a tour of the facilities to ensure it gives off the vibe you desire and meets the requirements you need (Wi-Fi, AV capabilities, etc.). When in doubt, bring your own equipment along as we do. Get a little creative with your planning of the day’s agenda. Whatever allows your people to have the mindset they need to grow your profitability is a good thing.

Don’t start the day off on a business note. Spend fifteen to thirty minutes talking about your overarching goals and desires as a team and as individuals (including family and personal goals). Allow everyone who wishes to participate to have a chance to share. This opens up the realms of possibility and gets people focusing on the big picture from the start.

Off-site planning meetings can have some long-lasting effects. In fact, we still have two pages from the flipchart we used in this year’s meeting hanging in our war room that summarize the things we’re going to get done this year. Off-site meetings are a great refresher and a perfect reset to an otherwise predictable routine.

Contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program for a premier wealth creation program that will help you work less, earn more, and enjoy life!

Easy Tips to Watch Your Money

Posted on December 28, 2017June 12, 2019 by Mike Stromsoe

We are so quick to say in our businesses that we are here to “serve our customers,” but at the end of the day, we are also all in business because we need to earn money. One of my favorite quotes from Earl Nightingale’s inspirational book, The Strangest Secret, is, “The only people who make money work in the mint. The rest of us have to earn it.” We all have to earn the money; it’s what we do with that money after we earn it that defines our level of financial security and, ultimately, the amount of freedom we enjoy in our lives and in our businesses.

Thanks to the Internet and mobile banking, our financial picture is at our fingertips at all times. I love the fact that I can log into my business accounts at any moment and find out exactly where I stand financially. Looking at your balances is important, but it’s about more than just checking in on the amount. I look at my bank accounts every single day for the following reasons:

I need to know what I have so that I can handle my financial responsibilities accordingly and pay bills responsibly.
I want to learn what should be there so that if something is missing, I will know right away.
It’s my responsibility to handle my money—there is no one who is more responsible for my financial picture than I am, so I have to know what’s happening day in and day out.
By looking at my balances every single day, it creates a habit that is similar to daily reading my goals. It reminds me of where I am and where I want to be.

It’s like riding a bike—the more often you do it, the easier it gets every time you put your feet on the pedals. The more often you manage your financials, the more you strive to understand exactly what every line on the balance sheet means, the better you will become at handling your money and making every dollar count. It really is that simple, but you first have to identify how the process works by immersing yourself in it daily.

When I work with business professionals across the country, I always ask, “When was the last time you did a deep analysis of your financials, profit and loss statement, and your balance sheet?” The vast majority of the time, the response I hear is, “I don’t remember.” That amazes me. It’s your business—and it’s your money. If you don’t care about it, I guarantee someone else will gladly take it off your hands. The people who say, “I don’t remember,” are also often the same people who tell me they can’t afford a personal assistant. Does anyone see the correlation here?

You need to be taking a look at your financial situation on a daily basis. I also review my financials in-depth at the end of every month to understand exactly where we are, both as a business and as an individual. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” There is simply no way to reach as high as you want to reach in business without making sure you have the clearest view of your financial picture.

Establishing a great online presence is a must for each business. To get the full roadmap, contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program. Our premier wealth creation program helps you work less, earn more, and enjoy life!

Does Your Business Use Client Service Report Cards?

Posted on December 21, 2017June 12, 2019 by Mike Stromsoe

Information noted on a client report card tells you just what you need to do to improve your business.

In our agency, we monitor all service satisfaction activity on a consistent basis. One of the greatest monitoring tools we developed is what we affectionately call the client service report card. The client service report card is a document that we send out to our customers to assess their level of satisfaction with the entire process. We don’t wait for problems or issues to surface. We pursue both the positive and the negative.

The card is a simple 4×8 sheet that is printed on orange card stock and addressed to our business. On one side, we have our BRM (business reply mail), which is a permit that we purchase once a year. You’ve seen such cards in the mail—they are the ones that say, “No postage necessary if mailed in the United States.”

On the card, we ask a series of questions to determine their level of satisfaction in working with us and receiving their claim. We ask questions like:

How satisfied are you with the service you received from us?
How would you rank our protection team’s knowledge and expertise?
How would you rank the overall level of helpfulness?
Please briefly tell us what you like or don’t like about the service you received.

These questions all lead up to the final question, which is, “May we share this information with potential clients who inquire about our services – Yes or No.” We send these cards out in practically every single mailing that leaves our agency. If people want to answer the questions, all they have to do is complete the report card, drop it in the mailbox, and it comes back to us. The only time we pay for it is when it comes back.

Those reports bring great feedback, a lot of which become powerful testimonials.

Things also come back to us concerning ways to improve our team. That is why we read these cards during our team meetings: To become better at what we do. If you don’t know what you are doing right and what areas need work, how do you know how to grow and improve? Don’t wait for your bank account balance—or lack thereof—be your indicator of customer satisfaction. That report card has meant so much to our business over the years, and I encourage you to add a client service report card to your arsenal.

Contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program for a premier wealth creation program that will help you work less, earn more, and enjoy life!

Is It Worth Awarding Surprise Bonuses?

Posted on December 14, 2017June 12, 2019 by Mike Stromsoe

Make it a habit to reward a job well done.

Most people are motivated by money. People are perhaps even more motivated by unexpected money. You know that feeling of finding a $20 bill in the pocket of an old pair of jeans? There’s a way to give that feeling to your team—it’s called surprise bonuses. When you spontaneously give bonuses to people when they least expect it, the results can be tremendous.

We like to identify team members who have done something extraordinary and reward them with something extra. Here is a list of some of the things I give surprise bonuses for in my office:

Staying late to finish a project because they want it to be just right.
Helping another co-worker with paperwork voluntarily.
Going above and beyond in our referral program.
After a customer calls the office to tell me how wonderful a team member has treated him or her.
Writing the most policies in the office for the month.

There is no limit to what you can reward. Just be sure that when you give the bonus to the team member, you tell that person exactly what the unexpected gift is for. The surprise doesn’t have to be elaborate—the fact that it is an unexpected token of extreme gratitude says it all. It will also ensure that whatever activity that individual did to get the bonus will be repeated again and again… and again.

Giving someone a gift or even a simple thank you works so well because of the idea that “big doors swing on little hinges.” People appreciate a ‘thank you,’ gift cards, cash, and other tangible tokens. When you recognize people in even the smallest way, it lights their fire and gives them the motivation to push even harder, write more business, and help more people, all to keep that flow of recognition coming. Recognition makes all the difference in the workplace, so never stop looking for ways to show your team how much you appreciate their attitude, work ethic, and spirit.

Surprise people with small tokens of your gratitude, and over time, you’ll hear fewer complaints about late work nights; you’ll see more people willing to take a little paperwork home over the weekend; you’ll find more people participating in the referral programs and other programs. Human nature causes us to take actions that will enable us to avoid pain. No one wants to feel the absence of a once-flowing stream of gratitude, so people will take whatever action is necessary to avoid the pain of that loss and keep the gratitude coming.

Aiming for 100% of the Marketplace

Posted on December 7, 2017June 12, 2019 by Mike Stromsoe

Is your business aiming for 100 percent of the marketplace?

Let’s begin by discussing your ideal marketplace. There is a goal I have in my business—I want to reach 100 percent of the marketplace. Does this mean that I cast the widest net possible in order to increase my odds? No, what it means is simply this: No matter how broad or niched your market may be, there is never a time when you should limit the ways you reach out to your potential customers and current customers. You must constantly strive to reach 100 percent of the marketplace using 100 percent of the ways available to you. This is one of the most important, overriding mentalities that must be present in any business.

Because of this program, I get to talk to a lot of people during the course of a week. When I ask them to explain their current marketing program to me, I’ll often hear, “Well, we email people to try to earn new business opportunities.” I don’t know about you, but if you use one of the many email delivery systems available today, and you stop for a moment to take a measure of the people who actually open your marketing emails (a.k.a. your open rate), you probably won’t be happy with what you see. Email still works—but the rise of “spam” has made email less efficient as a primary promotion tool.

Due to overuse, email isn’t what it used to be, but even if it were still the powerful marketing tool that it once was ten to fifteen years ago, using one marketing strategy is a “horse with blinders on” approach to promoting your business. If you want to reach 100 percent of any marketplace, you have to be using 100 percent of the ways to reach that marketplace all of the time. Every marketplace is different, demographically, geographically, and beyond, so what might work in one market doesn’t necessarily work in another. As you might imagine, such a marketing approach is not easy; so as marketers, we are constantly testing and doing market research. What combination of mediums will yield the best results? You should be consistently using as many of these as possible:

Phone. The phone is the one communication medium that is never going away, so don’t stop using the phone, ever. In fact, you should be using the phone to follow up with people who don’t respond to you when other forms of media were used. For example, pick up the phone and call a prospect who never responded to an email you sent last week. Voice broadcasts are included in phone communications.
Email. Email seems to be the marketing tool of choice for many. It doesn’t take you out of your comfort zone by having to call someone, and it’s very cost-effective. But because of those reasons, it’s also grossly overused. So, use it, but only in combination with other mediums.
Snail Mail. With the right target list, direct mail campaigns can yield some great results.
Fax. Although fax machines will eventually end up with the same fate as Blockbuster Video, some people still use fax. In fact, because email has largely replaced fax when it comes to advertising, it can still be an effective promotional medium for your business.
Texting. Sending auto texts to customers about new promotions or events is a great way to utilize SMS to reach potential customers or current ones.
Videos. You should have your own YouTube Channel, send videos via email, place videos on your website, on TV, and anywhere else where they might be seen.
Social Media. All forms of social media should be utilized, from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr, to LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, and Yelp.

Contact Mike Stromsoe’s Unstoppable Profit Producer Program for a premier wealth creation program that will help you work less, earn more, and enjoy life!

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Discover How To Explode Your Business Thru Referrals & Credibility!

Connect With Us Online…

Referral and Marketing Ideas

Giving Your Clients Peace of Mind

How Team Meetings Are Essential to Your Business

Information noted on a client report card tells you just what you need to do to improve your business.

Make it a habit to reward a job well done.

Is your business aiming for 100 percent of the marketplace?

Develop skills that successful people exude.

Choosing niches to target allows you to become an expert in your industry.

Protecting your business with employment contracts.

Claim Your Free E-Book & 2-Part Video Training Series

Discover How To Explode Your Business Thru Referrals & Credibility!

Connect With Us Online…