Feel like you have tried it all when it comes to marketing and generating leads for your business?

How do you know what has worked and what hasn't… or are you just bleeding revenue with not enough sales?

Insurance agencies are often competing against the major carriers with much larger budgets in addition to their local competitors.

Does it seem like you and everyone else are doing the same things and it's not going anywhere for you?

Once of the first things you need to calculate and know is what the customer acquisition costs is. What did you pay for the lead and how much did you spend to convert them to a client and how much did you make from them.

What is the customer journey and how do we remove as much friction to doing business with you as possible? But today we are here to talk about getting the traffic, the leads, the people to start in your ecosystem. We want to flood the gates and have control of the levers to turn this on and off as needed.

Then we will look...

Hear me out: bigger is not always better. Don't let your inflated ego drag you into a situation that starts to spiral out of your control. If you want to remain in control of the culture in your company take my advice: hire slow. You don't need to hire more just to look successful. And hiring a big team doesn't guarantee you more money, but it does guarantee you'll be spending more on payroll ;)

So like I said: hire slow. Really hone in on what position you need filled and who you're looking to fill it. Be upfront and clear about your vision and your why; even during interviews. You're looking to find the right person that will fit into the culture of your team. Someone who shares your core values; not just someone to make you money. The biggest mistake I see other business owners make is thinking that just because they see potential in someone they should have them do all the things immediately. Grow them slow. I start all my people on the phones and they must grow and prove to me...

WHAT STAGE ARE YOU IN?

There are 4 stages to how a CEO begins to grow a team and what they spend their time doing. If you don't work on moving up in the stages you usually get stuck in the doing and deciding cycle. Meaning you do all the work, decide to hire people, then spend your day deciding for them, and now you fire them all to just do it yourself. You then start to get overwhelmed and decide it's time to hire people again. Anyone else feel this before? 

DOING- are you doing all the work in your business and basically have created an employee job for yourself? you get to a point where you end up doing all the work and start to feel like it's time to hire someone/some people to help you or do the work instead?

DECIDING- you are now not doing much more work but have a team constantly coming to you and asking you questions or needing your guidance that you spend most of your day making decisions. Starting to feel like if you are just going to pay people to have to decide for...

To wrap up our week on building and managing a totally winning team, in this episode I’m sharing my secret weapon for keeping everyone working at their best, while avoiding awkward and unexpected talks about less-than-impressive employee performance...the Accountability Sheet! 

In the last episode I told you about Position Contracts. Accountability Sheets are similar, but contain 5-7 weekly tasks that team members must accomplish, and numerical values are assigned to their accomplishments. This is a great tool for measuring results in real time, and allowing employees to see what they’ve done and what still needs to be done. 

Accountability Sheets are a great measurement of week-over-week progress within a team, as well as a fantastic gauge of where things need to tighten up. If your team has a good handle on the big picture stuff, but still needs some fine tuning in daily or weekly task completion, this is the episode for you! Your staff will feel supported...

Today’s episode is a must-listen for bosses who want to have healthy and productive relationships with their employees - it’s about expectations! 

Each position within a company is created with the expectation of producing certain results. There are many ways to set out expectations and measure results...but how do you know if the method you’re using is working properly? If you’ve ever had to have an uncomfortable conversation with an employee who is taken aback at hearing that you’re not satisfied with their work performance, then you’ve realized too late that your measurement tool isn’t working. 

I’ve been using something called a ‘Position Contract’ between myself and employees for a long time. This contract is a written agreement between employer and employee about expectations and job requirements - it is specific and measurable, and keeps employers and employees accountable to one another. 

This...

In today’s episode, I share an activity that will maximize the potential of your team. It involves writing down all of the daily operations of your company, from open to close of day, and identifying which of your employees are best suited to take care of each item on the list.   

The idea behind setting a business operation plan is to ensure that all parts of your operation are performed by employees that get it, want it, and have the capacity to do it. In other words, you’re assured by this plan that each task is being taken on by the employee that understands the task, wants to complete it as best as possible, and is able to do it better than anyone else on the team. It eliminates redundancies and inefficiencies.   

By creating a comprehensive business operation plan, you will also easily be able to see if there is a need to hire someone new! As you’re laying out your plan, you’ll quickly see if there are spots that need...

This week we are going to be tackling the topic of your team! This can be the hardest part of business ownership: finding good people to do the jobs that need to be done. The right people in the right spots can be even trickier.  

Great leaders often say that their success comes from their team. This is true. Your team are the ones that put in all the legwork, and make your organization a great place to work. Your team often ends up being the experts in your field, because they’re on the ground floor learning your industry inside out, day after day. 

A great team member encompasses the core values of your company (see EP 11 for more information!) and consistently performs job responsibilities to the best of their ability. In this episode, I take you through an activity to determine who on your team is hitting all the marks, who needs some improvement, and who you should probably let go. 

I also discuss my first experience with having to fire an employee,...

Some of your most ideal clients are lost out there in the universe and they don’t know about your product yet. How sad - we must find them and make their lives better!  

These clients want exactly what you’re offering, and their lives would be improved because of what you can offer them. They’re stuck in the ‘problem’ phase of your brand story (see previous episode) - googling around for solutions, window-shopping various options, and just not sure where to put their money. 

Enter the Unique Value Proposition: the formula that puts you and your ideal client together in perfect harmony! 

A well-developing UVP connects the dots between the product or service that you offer, your ideal client, and the solution to their problem. To break that down for you, an example of a great UVP is: 

“At Inuit (company/product), we’re simplifying (offer of value) the business of life (problem)” 

The ideal client for this...

Humans love stories. They entertain us, teach us lessons, they help us make sense of things that we struggle with in our daily lives, and comfort us. 

A solid brand has a story that can do the same type of thing for customers. Your company’s brand story should be compelling and authentic, and make for loyal, lifelong customers. 

The power of the “About Us” section can never be ignored! A good brand story holds three components: 

1.  The problem you had 
2.  The solution you came to 
3.  The success you experienced from solving the problem 

In this podcast, I ask you the questions that will help you draw all the important details out of your story and on to your webpage/social media site/email campaign. Always keeping the end in mind, remember that the aim of this story is to attract clients and make them see that your brand is worth their time and money! 

Download my free Business Audit

Your personal values guide you to make the right decisions. They give you clarity when life gets confusing. Your company should have the same types of strong values that give you and your team the sense that you’re on the right path, and provide you with the confidence to forge ahead.

Having clearly defined values will attract the right people to work for you, and weed out those who don't vibe well with your culture. 

In this episode I take you through the details of how to define clear values for your company:

• Have your employees write down their own lists of 'most important qualities' for co-workers and bosses to possess 
• Gather the lists and whittle down to common items 
• Create a master list with examples of how each can be embodied by employees, and whether in a poster, email, or bulletin item, share the list and examples with everyone 
• Inspire your employees to continue to possess these values at work by asking them to give their own examples of how...