Episode 336: You Can't Be Everything To Everyone

Welcome to the Scale Your Insurance Agency Podcast. This podcast will give you all of the tools to scale your insurance agency and live life on your own terms. Wherever you are today, if you're stuck 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.

Hey everyone. Very clearly, you can't be everything to everyone. Yeah, I'm going to say it again. You can't be everything to everyone. It's Mike Stromso, and we're going to talk about that today. And the reason we're going to talk about that today is the financial health of your independent insurance agency, the profitability of your independent insurance agency, and the ease of doing business for your team. If those things sound attractive to you, welcome. You're in the right place. Because I learned after I was everything to everybody for too many years in the beginning of my insurance career, now in its 41st year, I finally figured it out. After I kept hitting my head against the brick wall. And again and again and again. And what kept happening? Well, not only did it get bloody and bruised, I got a headache. And then I got counsel from somebody who knew a lot more than I did. And that's when I quit being everything to everybody. And one of those people who gave me that counsel was a gentleman named Jack. And he wrote a book called High Probability Selling. And when I went through that training, it changed everything for me. And so we put together a document called The Triple No Go. And I built on this over the years, and I still hand it out a lot. And agents who receive this information and actually use it consistently have a lot of success, disqualifying people and only doing business with the people they want to do business with. There are millions and millions of prospects out there. So, you know, select the ones that you want to do business with. We move them on to somebody else, just not our agency. So the simple first question, and and here's the strategic way to use this. Ask the question and shut up. Forgive me, but ask the question and shut up. All right. The first question is hey, why'd you call us today? Let them answer. In many situations, they'll talk themselves right out of an insurance relationship. Number two, are you happy with your current agent? Their answer will tell you a lot. What do you want your insurance program to accomplish? And the fourth one, are you price shopping? Their answer will share a lot of what's going on in their mindset. Because our goal, again, is don't be everything to everybody. You see, one of the biggest marketing mistakes that independent insurance agents make, and I made the same mistake for too many years until I figured it out. We can insure anybody. In fact, the owner of the agency that I grew up working in used to say, you name it, we insure it. So that's what I thought wasn't true. So that may be technically true. Yes, we can find coverage for anything, but it's not go, it's not what's going to lead to your better profitability, uh, more growth, more value in the valuation of your agency. So a strong agency, a financially strong agency and otherwise, gets crystal clear, crystal clear about its ideal client avatar. And what we teach, we help and teach independent insurance agencies how to create their custom ideal client avatar for commercial lines, for personal lines, for acquisitions are the main three topics. And yes, it takes some effort, it takes a good amount of collaboration, a good amount of digging into the agency and what already exists. So, your ideal client avatar, and it helps develop niches in what we call expertise, relationships, carrier knowledge processes, and more. And I've got a short list in my hand of what real niche marketing should entail. First of all, you need to do research. You need to understand your marketplace that you want to attract and convert. And by the way, that's the definition of marketing. The attraction and conversion of your ideal client. The attraction and conversion of your ideal client. So, marketplace research when you start pursuing niches. What is the potential volume of this niche? How many people or how many businesses are on the list? Or people, if it's a personalized niche like high net work. What makes them tick? What keeps them up at night? What periodicals do they read? What trade shows do they attend? Have you attended one of their trade shows? Do you have a viable and competitive carrier for this market? Do you have a backup carrier just in case things go south? So I was working with an agency just this week who has landed on an opportunity to take one of their existing niches to a whole new level. And they are taking the carrier relationship way outside their comfort zone to a whole new level. It involves the captive environment. It's possible. 100% possible. Great story behind that. So, do you have a backup carrier or maybe a better carrier environment if you really want to penetrate that niche? Do you have a producer with experience and a passion for the niche? Is your back office prepared to handle the new niche? Are they educated in how to talk with the niche? And then everything marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing. We'll talk about that in just a minute and more. So set a timetable to penetrate the niche. Have a marketing plan, a strategic roadmap on how you're going to move to build relationships. Build relationships with the niche. Super, super important. Okay. So the ideal client avatar, developing the niches. And your answer should be concerning niches. Who do we want more of? Why are we uniquely qualified to serve them? And where can we consistently find them? Let me bring you a couple of examples from my history. So I grew up in the restaurant business. I went to my dad when I was 12 and I said, hey, would you give me a job in your restaurant? He said, I'll give you a job under one condition. I said, What is it? He said, you've got to work harder than everyone else. And if you don't, I'm going to fire you. I said, I'm good with that. I'll take the job. So that's what was that was my initial, second, actually the second introduction to the restaurant business. The first, uh, my dad also owned Jack in the Box restaurants prior to that restaurant. And I used to work in the drive-thru handing food out, and they say, Oh, you're so cute. Hey, it was an exposure and experience, right? So that was my the beginning of my restaurant business. So, what was the natural transition when I got into insurance? You got it. Insuring restaurants. I had what we call an affinity. So is there some affinity within your agency? And I want to encourage you also, go back to your existing book of business and see if you can identify, run a list. If you want to look at commercialized as an example, run a list of all of your clients. Uh, make sure you include the classification of business or NAIC number or SIC code so you can identify what the classification of business is and run that list and see if you have 5, 10, 15, 20 of any classification of business. That's your starting point. That's where you do your marketplace research. So get clear. Get clear on what you already have in your existing acre of diamonds. The niches, that's where the riches really are. When everybody is your prospect, nobody feels like you were built specifically for them. When everybody is your prospect, nobody feels feels like you were built exclusively for them. May I want to jot that one down. Next, stop marketing insurance. Stop marketing insurance. Become the problem solver for the marketplace that you wanted to penetrate. So early in my career, when I was trying to figure out how I was going to penetrate the restaurant business, I had an idea and I invested in a course to become a certified WarComp advisor. Because in the states that I was working in, they had WarComp. And I figured if I could become the expert at Workers Comp, that's how it would be, I would be my entry point to that niche. And so I became a certified WarComp advisor. And what's the next thing I did? I wrote the book. I wrote the book on WorkersComp. And yes, that's an older picture before I got my health in a better place. So 11 proven methods to rescue business owners from workers' compensation overcharges. I wrote the book. And it's amazing to me how people react when you have a book. And that started opening doors. And that started helping me begin to penetrate restaurant insurance. So I stopped marketing insurance and I started solving problems through solving people's workers' comp problems with their experience modification and lots of other things. That got me in the door, and then I was able to do better marketplace research. And as they say, the rest is history. You see, those aren't differentiators anymore. They become expectations. Because every agency out there, they all sound the same. What do you have to offer? We offer great service. We offer competitive rates. We have multiple carriers. We have an experienced team. Again, those aren't differentiators. They're just expectations. And everybody's saying the same thing. Don't be like them. We teach people to develop, in addition to their ideal client avatar, their three uniques. What are the three things that makes them different? What are the three things that people can't get anywhere else except your agency? What are they? Again, it warrants some time, some research, some collaboration with your team. Okay. Create a clear message around your three uniques and why your ideal client should choose your agency, especially in the niches. The conversation should never begin with policies. And you should be so confident in what you're doing that you're willing to walk away if that's what it takes. So be clear. It should begin with their business, whatever their exposures are, whatever their problems are, whatever the opportunities are, and the desired outcomes. This is where video and social media become extremely powerful on your behalf to share educational information and other separation uniques that you have to offer. Because this is where you're teaching them and demonstrating expertise instead of advertising insurance. Remember this. If your marketing sounds no different than the agency down the street, you've given the prospect no reason to choose you, except price. And then your enterprise came. And we don't want that for. Okay. One other thing from my journey, once we entered deeper into the restaurant niche, I've learned that there was a big pain in an industry because when I was working at my dad's restaurant when he gave me the job when I was 12, I was also making pizzas. I used to make pizza dough from scratch. I used to make pizzas and make sandwiches. I was busting tables, whatever needed to be done, right? So when I was doing that, making pizzas, I learned to love to make pizza and I knew how to make the dough from scratch. So what did I do? I started insuring pizzerias. And then I learned the pain point, which was the delivery insurance. So what did I do? I wrote the book on delivery insurance. I wrote the delivery handbook shop edition for pizzeria owners. And you know what happened after I wrote this book? So I had an executive assistant at that point, and I walked into the office one morning and she said, Hey, did you see the insurance commissioner was in town yesterday? He was after the pizzarias because there's a lot of pizzarias out there that have delivery drivers that are driving around without insurance. And he wants to make a big deal about it because he wants to make sure that everybody's protected. Because there's been a lot of large accidents where people were seriously injured. I said, no, I didn't hear about that. Can you go find the link on the news channel and email it to me? She did. So I was watching the interview and I was watching the reporter, and it was Fox News in our local area. And I'm thinking to myself, what could I do in this situation? And I thought, I wrote the book on delivery liability. I wrote the delivery handbook for pizzeria operators. And so I took a couple of these books, I did a handwritten note, and I sent it to the news reporter who did the interview on Fox News. I wrote a note. Hey, my name is Mike Stromso. I've written the book on better protecting pizzeria owners against perilous claims involving delivery. I thought you might, I saw your um interview with the commissioner on your news channel. I thought you might like to have a couple copies. If you have any comments, questions, or anything, here's my contact information. I gave you my email address, obviously my best phone number, which in that case was myself. FedExed it to the news station. A couple days later, hey, this is Fox News. Uh we're calling for Mike Strom. So hey, this is Mike. How are you doing? Hey, we got uh your FedEx, and we want to come up and interview you at your office. Me? Fox News was in the office a couple days later, did an interview that was on TV and everything. The book. Separation, complete separation in a marketplace. The next thing about your marketing, it must become a system. Your marketing must become a system based on your marketing plan, not an owner activity. The marketing system and the marketing plan must be continually executed every single day, whether the owner is present or not. And in many, many situations, the founding owner was doing a lot of the marketing and the networking and everything else in the beginning. And that's fine. So did I. But then I learned that I want to build a business that operates without me. And that's the definition of an entrepreneur. So to build a business that operates without me. So I learned because in too many agencies, the owner's still the marketing department. Marketing needs documented campaigns, assigned responsibility. In other words, somebody owns that piece of the marketing plan, weekly activity expectations, follow-up processes, CRM automation, referral systems, outbound activity, and most importantly, accountability to each one of those items. Now, that that's a whole lot I know. And you know, the tactical behind all of those things is a whole lot I know. And that's why we exist. We help independent insurance agencies with that. We teach them how to install it in their agency. So the ultimate objective is to build a marketing engine, which is the marketing plan and the team that produces opportunities, whether the owner is personally driving it that week or not, whether the owner's even around. Remember this. If marketing only happens when the owner has time to do it, you don't have a marketing system. You have an owner with another job. Number four, consistency beats the occasional big marketing idea. Have you ever had a big marketing idea? Guilty on multiple counts. And I've been convicted by my marketing team. Agencies frequently search for their next great lead source and they get a great idea. They go to a conference, they're talking to their peers, what have you, what have you. But what they're really missing is consistent execution based on the plan, based on the accountability, based on what they want to accomplish, based on the goals for the agency and more. You want to build campaigns around specific target markets. Remember, the definition of marketing is the attraction and conversion of your ideal client. Develop strategic referral partners. We were just talking about this this morning in our group coaching sessions with some with our coaching groups. Referral partners. What does that look like? Well, I have a list of over 33 items to consider when you're beginning when you begin to figure that out. But let's make it simpler. What does that look like? It looks like connecting with people to build deep, significant, meaningful relationships that are based on trust. That's what it looks like. So that's what you want to endeavor to do. Referral partners operate based on trust. Make outbound calls, send emails, produce useful videos, not just any video, engage on social media, attend community events, develop centers of influence, ask existing clients for introductions. But most importantly, do it week after week after week after week. Make sure you create a marketing calendar for the entire year or for the entire rest of the year based on your marketing plan. And make sure you give that to somebody who owns the execution of. That and make sure there's accountability built in for either weekly, I recommend weekly check-ins. Are we on track or off track? Simple question. Remember this great marketing isn't something you turn on when sales are slow. By the time sales are slow, you're already months behind. In the words of the great Jeb Blunt, who spoke at our boot camp, Jeb says, if your pipeline is not full 90 days out, you're going to be hungry in 90 days. I remember one of the funniest stories from my marketing education. I had a marketing mentor in the early days. His name was Dan. And I remember there was a business owner that was talking to Dan, and he was describing to Dan, Dan, our marketing is working so well. I mean, our team is pulling their hair out. They have so many leads coming in. How long can I pause the marketing? And then we'll start it up again. You should have seen the look on his face. He said, What? You never pause the marketing. You never stop the marketing. Don't ever stop the marketing. You never pause the marketing. You keep marketing all of the time. I mean, he got really colorful. Obviously, I've never forgotten that. That was a few decades ago. Never stop the marketing. What do you do? Better qualify. Take the cream of the crop, but never stop your marketing. And here's one of the most important pieces, and the last piece I have for you today. If you don't measure it, you don't know if it's marketing. Let me say that one again. And if you need to pause and write that down, please do. Unless you're driving. If you don't measure it, you don't know if it's marketing. What gets measured gets done. Activity is not the same thing as results. I may have been talking about this recently. I talk about it all the time. It's not the activity, it's the results. It's not the activity, it's the results. Posting 20 videos as an example isn't success. Sending a thousand emails isn't success. Attending six networking events isn't success. Track the entire funnel. Activity, conversations, opportunities, proposals, sales, revenue. Those six levers. Activity, conversions, opportunities, proposals, sales, revenue. That's tracking the entire funnel. Know where every opportunity originated. Measure referral sources, campaign response, appointments, pipeline value, closing ratios, acquisition costs were applicable, new revenue, and ultimately the ROI. Based on all of my years of experience, it is pretty common that when you sit down and calculate the true ROI or return on investment from any campaign, it normally well exceeds what you invested in it. I remember when I would do uh priority mail boxes to a certain type of business. I mean, the boxes that you get from the post office and you put some good stuff in there. By the way, you got to make sure the stuff that's in the box is really good and valuable that's gonna cause them to take action. That's another training. So nowadays, I mean, those could cost 20 bucks or more. But if you're writing $50,000 accounts, which is $7,500 in revenue, between $5,000 and $7,500 in revenue for $20. And think about the lifetime value. Take that $5,000 times five years. You're gonna keep it at least five years if you're doing your work. That's $25,000. $25,000 for a $20 investment. How many times are you gonna do that? That's the way you need to be thinking. Then double down on what works, or triple down, or quadruple down, and stop investing time and money on what doesn't work. Here's what I want you to remember. Marketing without measurement is just activity. The goal isn't to become isn't to become busier at marketing. The goal is to create predictable revenue. The goal is to create predictable revenue. That makes your agency valuable. Predictable revenue. Here's the goal, and here's the takeaway that I've got for you today. And if you heard anything today or this causes you to action, please find a link somewhere around this podcast. Let's get in touch. We'll be happy to have a conversation with you about any aspect of anything we talked about today or anything concerning your agency operations. The goal is to stop doing random acts of marketing and build a predictable marketing engine that consistently puts your agency in front of the right people with the right message and produces measurable opportunities without depending on the owner. Pretty simple. Don't overcomplicate it here in your mind. Simplify it in your agency operating system. I hope you got one, two, three, five, ten takeaways today that you're going to take action on right now. Thanks for joining us. Go build predictable revenue through your marketing plan and system focused on niches. My name is Mike Strom, so I'll see you in the next episode.

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