Episode 184: Insurance Sales with Jonhenri Ball

Welcome to another episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. On today's episode, we have John Henry Ball. He's an acclaimed mentor, coach, author, income tax strategist, lecturer, educator, and consumer advocate. He really believes in order to be a great teacher, you have to first be a great student. I think if you're an insurance agency owner, insurance agent, this is going to be a great episode for you as you begin to kind of think about how you want to shape 2023 for your business, and specifically how to be able to write more permanent cash value life insurance. We really focused this episode specifically on cash value life insurance. If you are not an insurance agency owner— and I know we have a lot of people that listen to the podcast— I think this still could be a great episode for you to be able to learn how— where does this fit inside your portfolio for you personally. Without further ado, here's my conversation with John Henry Ball.

So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers.

I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. Welcome to The Bottom Line, a new weekly podcast series that we drop every Thursday to complement our weekly Monday podcast interviews with industry leaders. These podcasts are going to be designed to give you short, impactful, and value-driven information that you can start using right away in your business.

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John Henry, welcome to the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

Thank you.

Excited to have you. So I always start with background and origin story for people that may, may are not familiar with you, don't know your story and a little bit about your background. Why don't you take us, take us back and then bring us to present day?

Well, I started in this business on March 7th, 1974. I remember that date because on March 14th, 1974, my last child was born. So that make me being in this business for 48 years. I've been an independent producer for 46 of those 48 years. Been a great life, uh, not retired just yet, uh, studied enough, been to everybody's meeting, gave everybody some money. I've always thought that in order to be a a great presenter. First you got to be a great student. And so I've been a great student, and, and we're working on being a great presenter. Enjoyed it. This has been good to me, so it's been a great business.

When did you get started in, uh, in sharing a little bit about some of the things that you learned? When did you start, uh, start teaching and sharing with others?

I started teaching actually in probably 1995. No, no, I'm sorry, '85, probably about 1985. And I started to do seminars in 1988, public seminars in 1988. So that kind of opened the doors where I taught the general public. And then from that, I started having guys to— insurance guys who would say, hey, will you come and do a seminar for me? And not just in my town, but throughout different parts of the country. And I started to write little blurbs on what it was that I was doing and always created my own presentations. And then I looked up, you know, kind of by accident here, you're a teacher, but I didn't set out to say I'm going to be a teacher. So it just kind of happened. Person said, you know how to do this? And I said, yes, I do. Can you do this? Yes, I can. And one step after another and looked up and here I am, a teacher.

Well, you know, when you get on an airplane, uh, every time, every time they say that in the event of an emergency, put your oxygen mask on first before you try to help others. And so I think it's great that you've been, uh, just lived a life of being a student first and the constant learner so that then you could pass on to other people, hey, here's what I've learned. It's benefited me. It's served me. I hope it serves you along the way. My first question I want to ask you, we're going into 2023. And at the time of this recording, we're at the tail end of 2022. And all indicators say that it may be a rocky year, possibly. But over 40, 46 years, 48 years, you've seen really high interest rate environments, really low interest rate environments, and everything in between. What are a couple of the principles that you stand, stand on regardless of rate environment whenever you're talking to your clients and obviously whenever you're sharing with others?

I, you know, I don't pay a lot of attention to the rate. Because I had a mentor who taught me that if you live by the rate of return, you die by the rate of return. That's part of what I was taught, that when you are presenting substance, and especially if you're presenting it from the guarantee standpoint, it will stand the test of time. And the insurance business has stood the test of time in high interest rates and low interest rates. But sometimes you just got to take it like a quarterback. You got to do an audible and change some of the things that I might say because I didn't want it to be them making a decision based on if I was paying 6% and somebody else come along and say, I can get 7%. And my math, my teacher taught me not to participate in that. So I've always sold from the guarantees and not from the interest rate environment.

Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. Somebody's— one business owner, uh, they've set out their targets for this year. They wanted to be able to have a great year. Uh, they're wanting to maybe have the best, uh, production year that, that they've had. Let's say specifically in terms of life insurance premiums, what are some of the levers that you would, if you were working with someone privately, right, to be able to share, okay, here's the approach that we're going to take in order for this to be a great year for you?

Uh, Brad, let me first say that I think that 2023 is going to be the best year we ever had to be in the life insurance business. But I also thought that in 2022 and 2021, the best year that we've ever had to be in the life insurance business And the reason being is because if, if from my standpoint, what I take and I look at, I go back to 1972, and starting in 1972, the especially the middle-class families, our representatives sold the middle-class families down the drain, and we've had issues as far as the middle-class families are concerned since 1972. But the life insurance products has stood the test of time, and it's passed through all of the ups and downs that we've had in the marketplace and still being a stable interest. So what I look at to say is one of the reasons I don't get tied up in the interest rates is because they're going to go up and down since 1972. But if I look at the guarantees on a life policy, I don't ever have to apologize for the work that I've done. And I think that if we look at the baby boomers, which will be my group, from the baby boomers down, they don't have any kind of stability in the retirement program. And when I look at the whole life policy, which is what I sell anyway, that I don't have to be apologetic for what I sold them. And so I think 2023 is going to be the best year that we ever had. And if you look at the marketplace, look at the marketplace here recently, how the gyration of it— I mean, you got, you got a whole bunch of paper losses, but I don't get calls from anybody saying what is going on in the market because I sell whole life policies, whole life, and with guarantees only.

Yeah, well, one thing for sure that we talk a lot about and mention on here is skills and beliefs. And just one thing, having the belief to say this is going to be the best year ever is a huge part of it. And having that mindset to be able to pass down, not only for yourself but obviously for your teams. Let's get down to skills acquisition itself. Somebody says, hey, I'm accustomed to doing maybe, I don't know, make up a number, $50,000 in premium, but I really want to acquire the skills to be able to sell permanent cash value life insurance at a high level, and I want to do $100,000, but realizing maybe I just don't have the skills to do that. Where would you begin with them?

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Well, I, again, we, it just, a lot of things come back to education. I think if you got a person who, who say that I want to go from $50,000 worth of premium to $100,000 worth of premium, a lot of times is, is not a skill level, is a who am I seeing. Am I seeing some of the right people? Because the objective is the same for that $50,000 that you sold in most cases for the person who who now that they want to do $100,000. One of the things that I tell the people that I train, that everybody who come in and see you come in with the same problem. They just happen to be at a different station in life. Every 22-year-old that come to see me got the same problem. They either have too little money or too much money. And most time they're going to have too little money. Every 50-year-old who come to see me has the same problem. As a 22-year-old has. Not enough money or too much money, but they are at different stations in life. And so I think if you look at the skill level, you can take the same skills that you sold a $50,000 worth of premium on, see more people, and get to the $100,000 because you got all got the same problem.

So whenever someone is thinking about their prospecting plan for 2023, what do you recommend?

I think that, that for most agencies, there are acres of diamonds in their book of business, uh, but we get so busy trying to get a new client. And I think that, that part of what I've done over the course of my career is if I take and do what I need to do with the people who are and do a great job for the people who are clients of mine, then one of the things that I ask is that every client of mine, that they have to replace themselves. And a referral, referred lead is stronger than me trying to go to the internet to try to get somebody, at least in my opinion, than me trying to go to the internet and get somebody to, to come and want to do business with me. I think you have to learn how to do systems planning. You have to be brilliant at what it is that you do. And once you get brilliant at what you do, then the people that you serve will replace themselves.

I don't think there's a business, insurance agency, or any other business that doesn't want to build their business on the back of referrals.

Referrals.

It's come up on the podcast with many different guests. What are some of the best practices around, especially whenever you're talking to somebody about life insurance, to be able to actually get quality referrals from your current clients?

I, I, it's always been hard, Brad, to, to get referred when, when you tell somebody that I'm in the insurance business. And so, you know, if you want to be a lonely person at a party, all you got to do is say is when somebody asks you what you do, you say, I sell insurance. Everybody's going to leave you by yourself. But I think that from my standpoint, I don't come to a client and say, tell them that I'm in the insurance business. I tell them more so that I'm in the business of selling money. Because if you look at a life policy, if I'm selling you a $500,000 life policy, what I'm actually selling you is I'm selling you money that's going to be delivered at a later date. And if I'm selling you a whole life policy, I'm selling you access— in most cases, I'm selling you access to the capital that you've taken and put into this contract, but I'm bringing you a bag of money sometime down the road And that's based on your death, but you got access to the capital while you live. And it has always been more of an engaging conversation to talk about money than it is to talk about backing a hearse up and saying the thing that most agents say, Mr. Prospect, don't you think that if you should die prematurely, your family should— do you want your family to stay in the lifestyle that you made them accustomed to? That doesn't sell for me. I'm telling you, when I start talking about— and then I do a piece for my clients where I'm defining for them money, and then we get to have an understanding of all— everything that we do, it eventually comes back to money. Client— my clients are more listening more because we're talking about the truth of money than me saying, okay, 'Let's buy some life insurance.' Yeah, that approach in and of itself—

people are willing to talk about, talk about finance, talk about money because they want to be able to have more money and know exactly what to do with it than they do, you know, want to specifically talk about life insurance. I completely agree with that.

But even if they weren't talking about that part of money, having, being, having plenty, they talk about debt. One of the bigger conversations is going to be about I need more money because I got a lot of debt. And so, I mean, and a whole bunch of times if you say, well, let me show you how to get out of debt, and I can, I can take and use life policy to do some of those things to get them out of debt and keep them out of debt, they are more open to me saying, okay, you need to buy a $500,000 policy so that if you should die prematurely. That's, that's a conversation usually for me That's a conversation that usually don't go anyplace.

You know, this goes for any sales. You've got to believe in the product, the policy, the service that you offer, because if you don't believe in it yourself, you're not going to be able to transfer that belief. There is no question you believe what you believe, and nobody's knocking you off your pedestal of your beliefs. But what do you think are some of the biggest misconceptions for maybe some of the agency owners out there themselves about where permanent policies, permanent cash value policies, fits in an overall portfolio. Now look, I realize that listening to this podcast, there's some people that are very well educated, have spent a long time doing this, have, have invested a lot in their own development through their own, you know, accreditations, etc. I get it. But then there's some people, I maybe new into the business and have just not taken the time to really understand the product. Can you just speak to maybe some of the biggest misconceptions? I mean, look, you've talked to hundreds, if not thousands, of agency owners and agents around the country over the years. What are some of the things that you see that you feel like are almost myths to debunk?

Say it again. Ask me that again. Let me make sure I understand, Brad.

What are the biggest misconceptions that you see around permanent cash value policies?

I think, well, I think far too often we are selling cash value policy like it's an investment. My emphasis. And then when you sell it like an investment, it's always going to be compared to a mutual fund. Is never going to outperform a mutual fund. And so I think the misconception is to start out by saying, by selling it like an investment, and that's what you die by. I think that if you learn— and one of the things that I point out in, in my teaching the students that I teach— that you have to look at an illustration and learn how to make an illustration a masterpiece itself. And, but, and, and I can— you should be able to do that strictly based on the guarantees. And the guarantees will give you— if you look at the guarantees on any life policy, guarantees are going to give you some of the best investment advisors in the world managing your money. And because they are guarantees, that is a big word, you don't have the fluctuation ups and downs. But when I started to sell it, when I started to sell it and I'm selling it based like I'm doing a mutual fund, every time the market goes up and down, my telephone is going to ring off the hook because now my people get to be concerned about, am I losing money? But from the EFT side, my emphasis is, let's not— remember that this policy is not an investment. And I'm going to tell my people to write it down and underline it twice. A life policy is not an investment.

That's good. What else do you see?

What else do I see?

Yeah, as misconceptions.

I think that we don't do a good enough job at emphasizing that what a life policy does, it replaces income and it replaces assets. And for everything that an agent or an investment advisor is selling, they're selling to try to accumulate money. In the life policy, when you take a look at the death benefit part of a life policy, it's already a stack of money, a bag of money from the beginning, and you're just working toward— if you're working toward endowing it to have enough cash equal what the death benefit of it was. But I think more than anything, there's so many things that you can do with a life policy, even though it's not an investment, where you're not putting your money and not putting your family at risk. And those are the things that more so that I talk about.

Where do you feel like the right place, right time fits for a flexible policy such as a universal life policy?

I don't like universal life, and so I won't. And the reason that I don't like a universal life, Brad, is there are too many moving parts for me. And so I got people coming to me and say, well, why don't you— why don't you sit— you don't talk about universal life, and I'm just strictly talking about the guarantees of a policy. Universal life got As I said, too many moving parts for me. And I've sold universal life, especially when it first came out in the early days, when you look at a universal life that had 14% interest. And I've sold some universal life that's going to vanish in 5 years, and here we are 30 years down the road and they didn't vanish. And then I have associates and constituents who sold universal life where the company's constantly coming back asking for more money. And the reason for that is because of the moving parts in the universal life. And so I've always been uncomfortable with the universal life for the simple reason that it has too many moving parts for me.

Yeah, it makes sense.

Yeah.

Hypothetically, I'm an agency owner sitting on— I don't know, make up a number— $2,500 customers, 3,000 customers, it doesn't matter. And I'm starting to begin to put together a plan. I think you mentioned around systems. I want to put together a plan and a system to be able to kind of attack on how we're going to, you know, begin to kind of reach out. What are maybe two strategies that you feel are great places to start in order to build a really strong pipeline of prospects?

I think one of the better places for an agency owner is to start and look at the demographics of your agency. You look from the standpoint to say, well, I have a third of my people who are 50 and older, I have a third of my people who may be, let's say, 25 to 40, and I start looking at— there's a— even though they got the same problem, there's a different marketing You take a 30-year-old, a 30-year-old has a kid that's 2 years old that they got— they're looking at, at— they're looking at going to college, they're looking at getting them through high school, and maybe looking at private school. That 50-year-old has a 19 or 20-year-old that's going to college. Am I making sense to you? So here we have, we have 2 people that's got the same problem. They may not have enough money or they may have too much money. In most cases, they don't have too much money. So I can take and segregate my book of business and say, this is what I need to be presenting to a 22-year-old or 30-year-old. This is what I need to be presenting to my, to my 50-year-old. This is what I need to be presenting to my 65-year-old, and go about creating a campaign that I can communicate with those people. Become brilliant at talking to, looking at what their problems are, because I think that everybody who come to see you come and have the same problem. They just have different season.

You just brought up something that I'll ask in a second. I'm glad it reminded me to ask you this. But I think that makes so much sense, is to realize that people at different stages of their life are dealing with different problems, different situation. And if we try to take the same approach across demographics, ages, you know, just, you know, where they are in different stages in life is really where I was getting at, that's not going to work. Uh, I think that so it's really obvious, but then sometimes we don't do that. We kind of have a one-size-fits-all, you know, bathrobe of theory of business type mentality to where, you know, one thing fits for the 60, you know, 55-year-old as it does for the 25-year-old, and it doesn't— obviously that's not the case. So I think that's a good point. You mentioned about coming to CU, you know, I mean, look, we're, we're, we're at this point pretty far past COVID, um, but not so much COVID and, and all of those restrictions, more so It's just harder to get people to sit down. What are some of the best practices you have around being able to get people to set an appointment and most importantly, getting them to show up?

I don't. I think, I think if I look at, look at the market today, uh, since COVID people really don't want to come to your office. Uh, in many cases you don't want them to come to your office because you don't know what they're bringing through the door. I think what we all have to embrace and get to be brilliant at is how to have a conversation in a setting like Zoom. Since COVID the setting like Zoom has become acceptable. You know, back in the day when I started to sell, you know, you could call a person and come and sit at their kitchen table and have a conversation with them. That doesn't work anymore.

Yeah.

But I could call you and say, hey, I'll send you a Zoom hookup and I have some things I want to talk to you about and it's going to take half an hour. And so they are open to that more so today than they were 3 years ago or 5 years ago. But I think that that's, we as people being in financial services and sales business, have to learn how to embrace the new technology.

Yeah.

You know, new technology, say, hey, I got to spend some time in learning how to get to be brilliant at me sitting in one room and you sitting, you sitting. I, I, you know, I may have a relationship and I'm here in Dayton and I got a person in Alaska. Zoom. Yeah. I'm in Ohio and I don't know where you are.

Mm-hmm.

North Alabama.

North Alabama. But Zoom make it look like we in the same room.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Good point.

And I, and I think, I think we have to learn how to, how to, to communicate and learn some of the signals because one of the bigger things is, is, you know, one of the, and, and I, I do classes on Zoom and one of the, one of the things that I, that I have to, adjust to is I may be doing my class and somebody's dog may come through in the background, and children come through in the background, family members come through in the background. You gotta— you have to deal with— I have to deal with all of those things and, and basically just let them go on when they realize that, okay, he's on— he's— or she is, is online, and then they'll run out of the room and and everything get back to being quiet. But you have to, have to, have to get an understanding that, that being on Zoom is, is not going to be like sitting in a room just the two of you. There's going to be maybe people coming in and out. You just have to make the adjustments to that.

Yeah, just getting comfortable with technology now. I mean, you're right, people are just a lot more, a lot more willing to, to do that. It's more convenient for them to be at home or be at work or whatever. So I think that's a I think that's a good point. All right, so I gotta, I gotta ask you, you gotta share with us one of your favorite word tracks to be able to get someone who— let's say that they say they're a current customer of you, right? That's not a complete cold call, they're not, but they are a paying customer of you, but you want to begin to prospect to them and engage with them in a conversation. What's one of your favorite word tracks? Share with us, uh, to to get that person interested in continuing the conversation?

I may send them a text and say, hey, I'm in a— usually I got to be in the class. I'm in a class with one of the brightest minds in the industry. And there were some things mentioned in our meeting, and I thought of you. I'd like to have a meeting with you so I can share my excitement with you. Uh, sometimes within the next 24 to 48 hours, or I would like for you to respond to it sometime in the next 24 to 48 hours, and, and do that consistently. And I think that, that you have 5 or 10 people a week that will say, okay, I want to hear what you got to say.

You know, uh, for some reason, I don't know why it made me think of this, I, I'm sure somebody— people have asked you before You know, there's a real popular Dave Ramsey, he's pretty anti-cash value policies. I'm sure people have asked you about this in the past. What's your response to that when you're meeting with someone that says, oh, you know, I'm a Dave Ramsey disciple and I'm not going to invest at all in any cash value policies?

And I tell them, I'm a Dave Ramsey disciple. Disciple too. I took Dave Ramsey class. I think Dave does a great job of talking about helping people get out of debt. But as my conversation, as I said before, I'm not talking to my client about life insurance policy being an investment. Now what I will tell them, that, that life insurance policy is not an investment, but you can use the value of the cash value for investments. There's a difference. Does that make sense to you?

It does.

Yeah, there's a difference. Life policy itself is not an investment, but— and, and, and, Brad, I think too, when you study and you understand the life policy, and you understand something about taxation and some of the other issues that we have, there's nothing in the marketplace, in my opinion, that when you take a look at the synergy of the life policy with whatever else it is, every time the life policy will make it better. And there's nothing— there's no financial tool in the marketplace that will do as much or do the same thing as a good life policy will.

John, how do you, how do you find the money? Somebody, household, husband, wife, both work. Let's say combined household income is, I don't know, let's pull out a number, $10,000 a month, right? And to say that they live paycheck to paycheck, that's probably not necessarily accurate, but boy, there's not enough.

It's pretty close.

Yeah, yeah, there's, there's not a ton left over. I mean, they, they pay the bills, they get to go eat, they, they pay for all the kids' extracurricular activities, etc. But man, to, to, to put, uh, you know, $500 a month, uh, additional or whatever— what, what, how do you help them, help a family begin to reallocate resources so that you can find the money?

Now, one question that I'm going to ask them, Brad, in the planning that you've done so far, is, uh, failure an acceptable option? And if failure is an acceptable option, there's not a whole bunch that I can do. But if they say failure is not an acceptable option, they cannot continue to do what they were doing before I came. So in most cases, they're going to have to make some sacrifices. Uh, and I find that most times we may not buy what we need, but we usually always buy what we want to buy. And so let's make a few— we got to make a few sacrifices to get to where you want to be. And then I can take and show— they show me more than I show them where the sacrifices can be made at. Sacrifices doesn't have to be forever, but If you could— if, if fare is not an acceptable option in the plan that you're doing, you cannot continue to do the same thing that you were doing before I came in to have a chat with you. We got to do some things different. It's going to be— it's going to be a sacrifice. You may not be able to— you may not be able to, to go and buy lattes. You know, when you buy— if you're buying a latte or 2 lattes a day and look at over a period of 30 days, look at over a period of a year, those lattes get to be very expensive.

I sure do.

And so I, I can, I can, I can, I can tell my client that we're going to have to make some sacrifices. They may be taking and, and, and buying, uh, you know, it— they may be taking and buying cars too fast while the cars are upside down. We may have to rearrange their thoughts of how they deal with debt. We may have to do some debt consolidations to get— because, because the difference in, in saving money— we save money based on compound interest, we borrow money based on an amortization schedule. And when we look at the difference in the two, the volume that we pay to use somebody else's money is quite higher than the volume that we're earning on our money in 99% of the time. Does that make sense to you?

Absolutely.

And so I got to spend some time with them. One of the things that I always feel that I got to do is I got to educate them out of the ignorance that's been perpetrated upon them by other financial advisors, financial gurus, sometimes even their kin folks and their friends. I got to educate them out of the ignorance and and give them a good understanding about money and how money works.

Well, what are some of the things that you hear from the ignorant things that you hear from some of your clients? And I'm sure you hear it from some of your even coaching clients that they've shared.

About money?

Yeah.

Well, I think most of them don't, you know, most of them really don't take and consider how important money is because we will spend, spend, spend. And so one of the things that in my planning, I'm going to get to a point where I want to know what's most important about money to my client or to the person that I'm talking to. And when we get to— when they start to understand they have a problem and they want to take and fix that problem, then they usually understand that they're going to have to make some changes in what they're doing and how they're doing things. That makes it a lot easier for them to take and say, I want to do this, or I want to do that, because they're understanding the impact of making— they have to make some changes because they can't stay and continue to do what they've been doing all the time beforehand.

How often do you recommend— because you've mentioned the word planning quite a bit— so you sit down with someone, it's the 1st of January, 2023, you sit down with a family, you begin to kind of put together a plan, you put something in place. How often are you gonna— first of all, what are you going to share with them so that you tee that up for the future? Then how often are you going to meet with them to review that plan?

I think that if looking at an annual review, should be that there should It doesn't have to be very, very detailed, but I think that you should— there should be some corresponding with your clients on a yearly basis. And one of the questions to be asking, what has changed since we last met? And once— if I'd taken and done a great fact-finder in the first time or times beforehand, I don't need to go through everything, but what I do need to know is what has changed from 2021 to 2022? And so, and then they could say, well, I had a relative that passed and I got an inheritance. What are your plans for the money? Are we still looking at some of the issues that we were concerned about beforehand? And so we can do planning based on their, what was in, we still come back to the question of what's important about money to you. And I think that for any planning that I do or anybody else, we ultimately come back to hopefully addressing what is important about money to the person that I'm dealing with. But because when I sit with them, I take in and I'm going to educate them about money. I got a series of slides or series of notes that I take, and I actually take and read my notes to them, make sure that we're on the same page in understanding money and how it works.

You're a fan— I know some of the companies offer some time-compressed whole life policies, limited pay options. Can you just speak to that quickly about why What is it about that product that you really like and enjoy? And just maybe a couple best practices around how to position that.

You know, one, in my career, over my career, I've been in this business for 48 years, and one of the concerns that I've gotten for many, many years is, I buy some life insurance from you and I got to pay for it for the rest of my life. And so with, with typically with most policies, you got to pay for, for your whole life. With the limited pay, and my preference is the 10-pay, and my preference is a 10-pay because the 10-pay gives me the shortest exit strategy. I can take, pay for 10 years, and I'm done with it. And it gives me a guarantee for the rest of my life, even if I live to be, let's say, 121 years old. And so the question that I will ask my client: do you want to pay for this for the rest of your life, or would you be open to a program where you're only going to pay for a 10-year period? In my opinion, the 10-pay, the cash values build faster than the other policies on the guarantee side especially. And so it will depend on the company on the guarantee side. And so I can say to my client, okay, even if they're not participating in like a 401(k) plan, if they're not putting enough money into a 401(k) plan, I can say we can take and put money into this 10-pay, 10-year period, and then we can look at putting more money into a qualified plan because now I got access to capital. I hope that makes sense to you. So, and then if we— if I take and I look at, look at my opinion of Section 7702, the changes that came about November a year or so ago, the Section 7702 has taken the whole life policy, especially when I look at the limited pay policy. And it has made it— you know, before 1970, the number 1 savings account in America was a whole life policy. And so the 7702, because the cost per $1,000 went up, but the MEC line went to be higher, 7702, in my opinion, has made the limited pay policy a savings account with a death benefit or a money reservoir attached to it. Does that make sense to you?

Yes.

And so when I look at it and I say I can take— I can take in— in one, I can give my client access to capital with the limited pay. Second, I can give my client a shorter pay period to pay into it, I can give my client a guaranteed whole life policy for the rest of their life, and I can guarantee that it is not going to MEC. So I'm killing a lot of birds with the same stone. Does that make sense to you?

Yeah, absolutely.

And so when I— and so I don't have to worry about them, worry about the company saying, well, well, because the interest rates went down, our investment didn't perform the way they want to the cost of insurance has gone up, that we're going to have to have more money. That doesn't happen with a 10-pay. My client doesn't get those kind of notices. And so with my client not getting those kind of notices, my telephone doesn't ring saying, hey, this thing went up. And so when I, when I'm presenting, I'm presenting strictly from the guarantee side. And so with the companies that I represent, or most of the people that I train represent, are mutual companies. They're going to be dividend-paying. And so if I'm only dealing with the guarantees and not the dividends, when the dividends start to kick in, the outcome is going to be better than I projected in my presentation with them. Does that make sense?

It does, it does, absolutely.

And so I don't have to be, I don't have to apologize for the recommendation that I gave my client with a 10-pay.

Last question. When you're meeting with someone or you're teaching some of your coaching clients on how to help someone figure out just how much they need to have, what's your approach? I mean, we happen to talk about Dave Ramsey. Obviously he has a, you know, take your income times 10 approach. What's your approach?

I really don't do need analysis. Uh, what I'm looking at, you know, if we look at most of the planners and we look at what a person would— anybody, most people in America need from a need planning, most of them don't have enough life insurance. And then if we look at the volume of term that we have on the books that is not going to be around when they're going to need it most. I'd rather come to you, Brad, and say, hey, let's take and buy a smaller tempeh. And when we— and when we— 10 years when we pay it off, because we've gotten accustomed to making those payments, and we start laddering and we buy another one. And so when you say, well, how much do I need? And you know, you take a 22-year-old, a 30-year-old making $100,000, they usually will go 100 times, so they need $2 million. Most of them can't afford to pay for $2 million worth of permanent coverage. And most of them, when they get to be 50, if they got $2 million worth of term, the price on it is going to start to get so high without having any kind of equity built into it that they're going to let it go anyway. Does that make sense? I can take, I can take that same person and say, well, and then one of the things that I use when I'm talking to a client, I'm going to use Publication 590 of the IRS, which is going to look at life expectancy. And one of the questions that I'm going to be asking my client, are we, are we planning for 20 years, or are you 30 years old and life expectancy you're going to be age 85? Are we planning for 20 years? Are we planning to at least to your life expectancy? And if they say, well, we're planning to life expectancy, and then I know the statistic says that 98% of term policies don't pay. And my issue is to say, I could sell you less coverage and make sure that 100% of what I sell you pay. In time. And especially if you live to life expectancy, I can have $1 million worth of life policy converted over that's permanent just from the fact, in most cases, that we start to ladder what we're doing. Does that make sense to you? And so I don't really sit down and say, let's do— what I'm looking at saying, okay, if we, if we're planning for life expectancy Now there's a risk. I'm taking a risk of 2% that hopefully they don't die beforehand, but based on the statistics, I got 2% where that may happen. Does that make sense? And from my standpoint, I'm willing to take the chance on that. I'm going to explain it to them so that they understand beforehand, but, but because I'm, I'm looking, I'm looking at at 65, 70-year-olds that really don't have insurance. They had insurance at work, but that has declined or decreased substantially. But they had, when they was in their 30s, 40s, and early 50s, they had term policy. Yeah, they're gone now. They're like, they— I mean, there's a closer chance they're going to die at 65 than it was that they were going to die at 30. Yeah, but for everybody, everybody have so limited pay They still got it. Yeah, that's my approach.

Don Henry, it's been great having you on. Thank you for just sharing your 40-plus years of experience with our listening audience today. Hey, somebody wants to get in touch with you and, and, and work with you, where would you point them to?

I didn't call me on my, on my cell phone. Can I give you my number?

Yeah, fire it away.

937 416-8187. They can send me an email to jhball@me.com.

All right, we'll make sure we put both of those in the show notes that we put out. John Henry, I hope to have you back on in the future.

Thank you, sir. Enjoyed it.

You know, a couple takeaways from me One that really has resonated as I was going back through my notes was looking at the different marketing campaigns based on the demographics in your business. And I would say that that actually, that philosophy really applies to any business that you may have to say, hey, I don't want to necessarily put the exact same hook on the end of the line for everybody. So for instance, you have a lake house, you want to go fishing on the Tennessee River, you know, you're not going to use the same bait to catch a bass as you're going to use to catch a crappie or catch catfish. You're going to have to use different baits. And that's exactly what I was thinking about as I reflected. Number 2, I think that whenever he was really making a point to be able to say, hey, I do not sell this as an investment. If you sell it like an investment, it's going to be compared to other investments, and you are going— if you live by that, you're going to die by that. I think the third thing is, is his conviction around the guarantees. And you can really tell— we didn't get too much into the specifics— you can really tell he understands and knows the products in and out, and he's able to speak to it. He's very convicted in his approach and his philosophy. The question is, is what is your personal philosophy around things? It really becomes almost practicing financials and financial advice. It was like they say practicing medicine, it's kind of like practicing business. I mean, there's just no one direct way. If there was, everybody would do it the same way. But there's different approaches. And for you, uh, for you, like literally personally in your life, but then also, uh, in your business, uh, and for your team, what is the philosophy that you guys are going to abide by? As an example, and he shared he's not a big universal life fan. Maybe some of you listening to this say, hey, I disagree with that. Totally fine. What is your approach? And are you able to articulate that and have the conviction around it? He even went on to say, hey, I don't necessarily do fact-finding, needs analysis. Many of you may have heard that and said, hey, I don't know. That's where I was raised and how I was grown up. And this is how my mentor taught me how to be able to do it. Bottom line is have a philosophy and approach that is genuine and honest for you. Appreciate John Henry coming on the podcast. Hey, big shout out to our podcast sponsors as we roll into 2023: Coach P Consulting, Autopilot Recruiting, and Club Capital. Look, if you want to find amazing people for your team to be able to grow your business, It is so important that you do it on a regular basis. You never know when that A-player is going to move from out of state, another town, and it's going to be looking. But if you don't actually have a process where you're going to be searching for people on a regular basis, then you're going to, you're going to miss them. 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What about for, for you personally? Do you understand how much money you'll be able to extract? Maybe you want to increase the amount of money you spend on a monthly basis from maybe $10,000 a month to $12,000. How are you going to reverse engineer that? We got to be able to have really great tight financials on a regular basis to keep track of your profitability, understand how much money you need to set aside for taxes, et cetera. So go to club.capital, book a no obligation, demo, this is a great time to do it in January as you're transitioning into the new year. They can look at your 2022 numbers. If you're coming from someone else, maybe you do it yourself and they can clean things up and get you prepared for tax season over the next couple months and be able to help you to really have a great understanding of your numbers to make great decisions in 2023. All right, everyone, this was helpful to you. Would you consider sharing it with one other person, maybe leaving a review on Apple? ITunes. I really appreciate it so much. Hope this was a great return on your time and most importantly, on your attention. Until next episode, lead well.