3 Strategies To Improve Your Appointment Process | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 310

All right.

Well, in the past couple of weeks, I've gleaned a few things running appointments that I've always kind of believed were important, but never really got to experience firsthand the actual importance of them. And I wanted to talk about those things and I also wanted to gather Chad's thoughts on the topic. I mean, Chad, you've been. I did the math. You've been running appointments for 18 years. Right. Going back to 2006, when you are starting to sell, obviously you've been actually running appointments longer than that. But annuity specific, I believe, was 2006. Correct.

Yep, yep, yep. I think what you're finding out is boy wonder hasn't found the wonder yet, or he's just wondering why aren't they buying yet.

Well, yeah, so I've had. I've had exclusively first appointments so far. I haven't even had a second appointment yet. What? A few things that I've learned in the first one.

Wait, let me ask that. Let me ask that because, you know, I'm all about statistics. So you've had how many first appointments?

Four.

Four. And how many second appointments did you schedule out of the four?

Well, one was a one. Sit close. So that one.

Okay. Phenomenal.

Okay, thank you. And then I've got. Well, the other. The other three were. And then I've had to reschedule one twice. And then one canceled. Like definitively canceled.

I'm just curious because, you know. Yeah. Because a lot of times people don't get that second appointment even though they had the first appointment. They don't schedule the second appointment. Right there.

So you've had to schedule an. In the first appointment. Get it locked down.

So you have one appointment once at 1. Go ahead. You have one appointment, one set, one close.

Appointments.

Yeah, one appointment where they. You scheduled it, but they canceled on you. You have one appointment that you've rescheduled twice and then you have one appointment that is still booked to meet with them tomorrow. Okay, good.

Yeah.

Okay. I want to. I want our listeners to hear that because you just got started in running appointments and you literally are four for four. As far as second appointments. Now, technically, you could say the ones that closed wasn't, but it would have been, so. Because you would have asked. Okay, go for it.

You mean. Yeah, based on the purchase. Absolutely.

Yeah.

And so I've tried to make some notes of, you know, coming out of each one of those, what seemed like the most important piece of the thing. Like, what did the client seem most not concerned with, but process wise, most Moved by, most impacted by all those types of things. And so I have three notes here. Number one, and we beat this. I mean, all the time is a dead horse for Chad and I. I mean, but the importance of good fact finding. I mean, my goodness, I was thinking about this earlier.

It's a dead horse. But agents. Yeah, yeah, it's a, it's a dead horse, but agents keep resurrecting it because they keep. Yeah, they're not doing the fact finding. And there are some really good ones out there. But you know what? You're the one that talks to agents all the time. The ones that are succeeding in writing a bunch of business are good at fact finding.

It's true. Well, and here's a case in point. One of the. One of the leads I had said $100,000 to invest, right? Call him, do the mini fact finder. Ask him, okay, so what do you have in qualified accounts? IRAs, 401ks, Roths, things like that. And he said, I'll bet a million. So. So I went out and I showed him a million dollar real estate.

Yeah, say that again for the ones in the back. Go over that again. How much did they say they had?

Lead said he had 100,000. Go out. Or do the mini fact finder on the phone find out he's got a million dollars in qualified accounts, about 300,000 in non qualified stocks, bonds, mutual funds and half a million chilling in the bank. Okay, so we've got some wiggle room there. I showed him a million dollar illustration and I meet with him tomorrow. We'll see what we can do.

You didn't, you didn't show them up for a hundred thousand?

No, absolutely.

I mean, why. That's what he told you they have.

That's what he said.

Sarcastic, but I mean, this is why. You know that point right there is the average agent is about 150,000 per client is their average sale. And I think mine's what, 560, 570 per client. It's because we know how to ask the questions. Yeah, yeah. So, right.

Yep, Absolutely. Okay, Mommy. Think about that for a second. That one, because you asked the right question, I could come across.

Two other individuals that both have below average case sizes. Equate to, let's say they're 100,000 in premium. If all three of those go through an issue, that's $1.2 million in premium. You divide that by three, that's a $400,000 average case size, which is almost three times the industry average. Why? Because you Asked the right questions on all three, and one of them happened to be gargantuously larger than what they originally said on the lead. The leads may all look the same, but what they're actually working with is vastly different. The power of good fact finding. Chad, I mentioned something to you this morning that I had never really thought about until actually trying to articulate things to an end client. Right. I've worked with agents for years now, but actually articulating things to an end client. And I'm like, we've got four questions on the, the full fact finder that depending on how they answer those should pretty much be a hook, line, sinker.

I mean, just perfect scenario for an FIA with it, particularly with an income rider. If you ask them at the top, how long are you going to live? Obviously nobody knows. What's the stock market going to do? Obviously nobody knows. So can we agree that building a retirement plan based on an assumption about either one of those things is a faulty foundation? Yes, of course. Okay, so we're going to take out any kind of longevity expectation or any risk of it, and we're going to take out any risk of market performance. Okay. Then you ask them, what are you willing to lose all of your money, some of your money or none of your money? Well, I don't want to lose any of my money. Okay, there's the first thing now. Now we're dealing. No more risk, no more variable. We got 0% floor options only at this point. And then you ask them, is this a plan for living or a plan for dying? That's a plan for living. Okay, so now what do you got? You've got to protect the principal. You obviously want to participate in the upside of the market, and you've got a plan for living. So you're talking about guaranteed lifetime income. There's one singular product that handles all four of those questions and addresses all four of those. There is literally not another option out there. So then when the client comes back later and they're like, oh, I was looking at this other thing, it makes the objection handling should make the objection handling easier because they've literally told you these four things that can only be addressed with the one thing that you're positioning.

And it's funny though, one of your clients came back and she did had an objection. And that didn't roll off your tongue like that. Now it did. And this goes. It goes to show you why it's so important to not just know the information, but to study it and go over it and over and over it. So that way when they have that response, it automatically it's like, Caleb knows this. I mean, somebody gives me an objection. Actually, our producer started to throw out an objection like to, to say kind of what the client. And I immediately went into objection handling mode. Not intentionally. It just naturally I went into that and bam, bam, bam. Bombarded. He was like, wait, wait, wait. He literally goes, he goes, I'm not going to win an objection handling contest with you. I'm there. I, I'm not going to have a rebuttal for that. But it was funny because I didn't. It was so subconsciously embedded in me that I knew the objection and it just came out. I know the objection handling right there. And so we've got to go through these courses and through the academy over and over and over again to, to where it. Somebody comes up with that objection. Because when Caleb told me what she said, I can't jump on the phone right there and go, hey, move out of the way. You know, right? You just, you don't, I don't have the double yolk like a pilot does. And like, hey, you know what? We're about to crash. We're about to go. You know, I, I couldn't take that over. But when you're talking, you know the right answers, you know the right answer.

It'S just, it's just a matter of getting those to translate into a fluid right when you're kind of caught off guard. Because what was interesting was the plan was perfect for what she needed it to do. It was in alignment with everything she, she told me. And yet I'm getting this, this call saying, hey, I'm going to save you a trip. Because I'm looking at a different thing. My knee jerk reaction went to. Well, I guess this, the initial question may not have been Vs. Okay, what are you looking at? Right? Like, what's the other thing? Because I need to understand, trying to understand what is it that she's considering to be able to provide the juxtaposition. The problem was once I heard what she was, was considering, my reaction wasn't to create the juxtaposition but to try to degrade that thing going, you know, asking about being, staying exposed to risk and all that kind of stuff. But anyways.

Well, you acted like you like the cat where, where somebody just stepped on your tail. You know, I told you, I told you, right? I said I felt kind of like I felt really bad for him because the way he responded not apparently my voice. Yeah, yeah, it did. It Seemed like, oh my gosh, somebody just kicked his puppy. And now remember, this is someone who I have named as one of the top three marketers I've ever known in my entire life. So if you think about this, one of the top three, and I've been in this business for 20 years, and he still, after training so many agents, I mean, probably thousands of agents, he, he has that. This is why having someone who's in the field is so important to be training you. Because Caleb can do case design like a master. He knows the right answers, he knows the objection handling. But it's still a matter of who's in the field with you running appointments just like you running these same things. And this is one of the reasons I know you wanted to start running appointments is because Caleb wanted that first world experience of if I'm going to be helping agents, I want to know what they're going through. And he, he's been asking, asking for probably six months to a year to be able to run the field. And now he's seeing what is. And it's just going to make you better and better. I assure you, Caleb, you're going to be. Yeah, you're going to be phenomenal. I have no doubt about it.

Yeah. Just keep learning. Keep learning and growing.

Yeah.

There was two other things that I noticed from other appointments. Number one, the necessity of having a presentation. And a. It was hilarious because the first guy I ever met with, I go through the presentation that I've obviously gleaned from, from Chad and you know, all the documents and everything that retirement realized sales system is what we do. Like this is just how it's local agents, we train them to do the same thing. Agents in the academy, we train them to do the same thing. I mean, it's just what it is. So I go through this first time I've ever actually walked somebody through the first appointment. And I almost started laughing. I, it was, it, it made me smile and I had to kind of contain myself because he literally, he goes, well, you can tell you've been doing this a while. That's literally what he said. And I did, I'm like.

Yep.

I'm like, sure, I didn't say anything.

But you have been just not in.

Front of clients, working with agents. Right. Well, and I've, it's funny because what you glean from observing you doing it, Chad, for all this, you know, all these years in time listening to you on the phone, I've run appointments with you, I've seen it. And then obviously Going through the academy. But I don't know what agents would do in an appointment if they don't have those documents, if they don't have the, like the presentation. Like, what are you, what are you guys even talking with your clients about if you're not going over these things?

Like, you know what we used to do? So we used to have, we used to have these, these notepads and I would, you'd actually write down everything. You would go over the risk that, that was safe money risk and actually didn't even do it back in those days. Man. You just go over the cap participation rate and spread. You'd write down like we wouldn't even have fact finders. The factor finder is something I believe and I'm not 100%, but my mentor had a seven page fact finder and I'm like, he was one of the first that I knew that had one. I'm like, I'm not doing a seven pager because to me that's kind of intimidating. Him and his age, it was perfect for and oh, that's kind of crazy. I just realized when I met him, I, I, I am, I'm almost at the age he was when I first met him.

Whoa.

Okay. I feel really old all of a sudden. But you know, but it's changed. And now we lay that out. The fact finder. You're right. It, right, it can take someone who's new in this client seeing clients to where they're experts because you're literally following the same process totally.

Well, and that's the thing. It's like if you're bringing a client, you should be bringing a client into some kind of flow, some kind of process. I see agents often just constantly appease the client's desires and wishes and preferences and it, it creates this extremely turbulent and inconsistent process for them. I don't. And it doesn't work. I've not seen an agent that's just super passive and let their clients just take control over things. I've not seen an agent that does that actually write good, consistent business ever. They might, they might close a few cases a year, but it's pretty, it's pretty sparse for that, that type. So you're bringing clients into a process. Go ahead.

No, it's like a squirrel, a blind squirrel can find a net. I mean, that's really what it means. You know, there, there's certain clients you meet with that. It's just, they're so fed up with a broker, they just want to get, they've Done their research, they know what is. It's no skill of the agent, it's just they know what they want.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you bringing them into a process and you're an expert in your process, that's the key is obviously you want to be an expert in all the things, but be an expert in your process and it will convey a confidence not only in that you know what you're doing and you know what you're talking about, but they'll it actually create a confidence that they have in you. It can offset some of the lack of experience by being an expert in the way you're progressing through the thing. Like I had never met with anybody before and I'd say I'm an industry expert, absolutely. I understand the stuff. I know this stuff conceptually inside and out. That's great. But if that doesn't translate, that knowledge doesn't translate in a smooth and eloquent way to the client, that's understandable to them. They're not going to perceive the knowledge you have as expertise because they're not understanding it. So a great, an expert is able to take something that seems complex and actually explain it in a simple way that other people are able to understand and buy into.

And then the third piece, the third thing that I noticed from appointments is the necessity of knowing your product and carrier inside and out. The big million dollar client that I was working with, I mean he had question upon question upon question about the product and wanted clarification on this and how does this work to here. And thankfully I knew the product inside and out. I knew the carrier inside now and I was able to answer all those questions for him accurately and truthfully, not just pulling things out of, you know, thin air like some people do. It's like if I didn't know something, I was ready to tell him, hey, I'm not sure about that, but I will find out and I will let you know. But I didn't need to do that. And there's probably eight or 10 questions he asked about it that isn't necessarily part of the normal illustration explanation process.

Some of it he just wanted more elaboration on and confidence and clarity on certain pieces. So anyways, those three things, good fact finding, having a presentation process that you're bringing them into and then knowing your product and carrier inside and out are at least at this point, four appointments into this deal. The three like biggest pieces that I can attest to the importance of.

Awesome. Think you're going to kill it, man. I have no doubt about it, so. Well, I hope this helps you guys. Even a blind squirrel can find a net. Kayla's finding it.

Okay, have a great day, and happy selling.