5 Things Your IMO Should Be Doing For You | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 172

Today we're going to be talking about 5 things your imo should be doing for you.

Welcome back to this week's episode. I am Chad Owen, the annuity sales coach, owner of Retirement Realize Financial and Retirement Realize Agents Academy and strategic steward of this.

Yes. Okay, so let's start.

Steward of this. All right, Five things your IMO should be doing for you. Number one, Training.

Yes. And I can't tell training from a real agent.

Highly producing real agent.

Yes.

I can't tell you how many times I've had conversations with agents about the academy, and they go, oh, my M.O. provides training. Oh, really? Who does the training? Oh, my marketers. Oh, okay. So they're training you on how to be an agent in the field, and they're at their desk five days a week.

And now I want. I want to balance this out. They work their tail off. Most marketers are incredible at doing what they're supposed to be doing, but they're not designed to train. And most good marketers will tell you that. That's why the people we partner with, because we have some marketing organizations we partner with. And why do they have me helping them? Because I'm in the field just like you, running appointments just like you, running into the same issues just like you. I know what it's like to spend two or three hours making calls and here till 7:30 at night and all of a sudden going, dang, that was a waste of time. I didn't get in touch with anybody or going to an appointment. And you drive an hour and a half to get there, and guess what? They're, you know, or they call you as you're about five minutes from the house, and they go, hey, something came up. I just want to let you know ahead of time, dude, like, I'm pulling into your driveway right now.

That actually happened. And I got the deal. But the guy is. I said, hey, I'm at your house. And he goes, oh, that's just not gonna work, or no, no. I said, how did that work? I said, oh, we have an appointment today. He goes, yeah, that's not going to work. And I said, I'm literally outside your gate right now. And he goes, okay, well, yeah, let's go ahead and meet. Boom, Got the deal. There you go. Yeah, so. And it's not that, oh, I got the deal set. I just said, hey, I'm right here. But no, there's some people that they literally just forgot or they didn't care. It's true. And a marketer generally will not get that yeah, not minimizing what marketers do. It's just different. It is there. Well, product finding, good products, case design, you know, I mean, people know, even at main or circle level, I'm not doing case design because your marketer, that's their job.

Right.

And I can assure you my marketers have contributed a huge amount for my success. And now I don't use them that much because I've got it down. But, man, when I was first starting and getting that, it was so important that I could call and find out, hey, you know what? I'm not real familiar with this product. How does it work? And because I had a good marketer, I didn't have to worry about it. That being said, I've also had some really bad marketers where I'd call and they'd give me the wrong product because that's the only thing they pushed.

Right.

And I got. I lost the deal because I found out there was something better. And so, yeah, I don't want to minimize that at all. But real training from a real agent is really important.

It is really important. And I love the qualification you made a couple minutes ago. If you're part of an organization, organization that we work with, you can be certain that they're doing these five things we're going to talk about today, when.

We were actually going to five things. We needed to make sure that the ones we partner with actually do this and we verify. Yes, they do.

And so all that to say, if you're with them, hey, you're with a phenomenal organization, you should continue working with them. Because you'll find most marketing organizations in the industry are lacking in at least one, if not two, three, four or five of these areas.

Well, and that's why you'll find two. You know, I'm very particular on who we partner with. And when it comes down to it, it's like, what work ethic, integrity, what do they have? What do they offer? And it's so important. And that's why we've told people, you know, I've had people from those marketing organizations as agents call me and say, hey, I want to work with you. I'm like, no, we already work with that organization. Well, but what if I move all my contracts over? Why don't you do that with the organization we're talking about right now? Move all your contracts over to them.

Do.

Because you're gonna get the same training that I give. So it's really important to know that we will never take an agent from one of our Existing partners. We just don't do that.

Cause they're. Yeah, they're doing things at such a high level.

Yeah.

A second thing that is really, really important is access to good marketing and lead sources. Now there is something worth qualifying here because there are a lot of IMOs and some do it at a fine enough level.

But they're. Let's clarify. When we're talking about IMOs, we're talking about IMOs and FMOs, BGAs or talk about. Because I do get someone everywhere. Well, they're not really FMOs. I know anybody who you write your business through.

There are a lot out there that will try to produce leads in house, but inevitably they're not lead generation experts, they're not lead companies.

And do we have one of those old phone books over there? Because you know, anybody in this phone book has got to be at least 50 years old because they haven't produced phone books for that time frame. So why don't we just give them a couple pages of that?

Well, and I actually, I mean, it's something that we're looking into, we're learning, we're figuring out. I have a natural skepticism, so to speak, for leads produced by an imo. Now obviously they have, they have incentive to get their agents in front of more people because more business is written. Yes, but where it becomes a little bit.

But they also will make claims to, to get more agents knowing they can't produce the leads they need or a high quality lead. And once again, that's why I shout out the organizations we partner with because they know that. They say, well, Chad uses these same lead systems and it's, you can't tell me x lead system doesn't work because that's the one I'm using.

Right.

So yeah, you can't see that.

So having access to good marketing and lead systems is not saying that your marketing organization should be a lead company. It's saying that they should be able to point you in the direction of or help you find more people to meet with. If they're outsourcing to people that are experts, companies that do that on a daily basis to try to produce a better product for you, then great. If they're producing them in house, awesome. The bottom line is they should be able to help you get in front of more people. If they can't, that's an issue. Number three is providing you with a professional level branding and it's kind of creative and branding services. I had to look at my notes real quick. I couldn't think of the word creative, but that's it. It's a professional level creative and branding services.

And generally you can look at their website and get a kind of a good indicator but then you also look at their documents and see how do they brand their own documents. Then on top of that you look at what books do they have, what accessibility do they have to marketing materials. And if you see them constantly using other insurance companies marketing materials and they don't have a bunch of their own, that's, that's a little bit of a red flag. And you don't want the cookie cutter non interactive website that oh, we'll build your website. You mean I could go to Wix and do the exact same thing?

Right.

And I have the same thing I put in every single website. That's not how to do that. You want it to be able to be your personality, your, your who you are.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I agree.

And without giving away too much about next week's episode, we are going to be talking next week about the importance of having creative and branding services done for you. Three reasons your lack of branding.

I'm getting sick. I'm not going to be on that one.

Three reasons your lack of branding is actually hurting you and how you can solve it. So we're going to go into that a lot more depth next week. But that is huge. They need to help you in that area. Number four is provide you with expert level case design. This is a huge one.

It is because when you're looking at case design, I would say the vast majority of my million plus dollar clients are because I went through a full income plan. I layered, I figured out exactly how much they needed. If I need to use this company from this timeframe to that and then they need to use a different company from there to there and I need to use another company from there to there or I use same company because of their age and I start drawing one ladder here, here. And the case design all helps with that.

Absolutely, you're exactly right. The reality.

Well, I know I am.

The reality is that the agent's reputation, your reputation or listener's reputation is on the line with every product they recommend. So if they're in an organization that the extent of their case design is, hey, they're pushing products on you so that you push products on your clients. That's an issue. The way that I approach this is every single case that comes across my desk to help agents with is treated uniquely.

And I will say this, this is a not, this is a shameless plug Caleb is definitely one of the top 1000 case designers.

He is at least one of the.

Best out of eight. Then I stopped at a thousand.

No, but I definitely say in the top three.

Top 99% top three.

And I. And I. Yeah, exactly.

Thank you.

You're. You're the thousandth person. Well, how many people were there? A thousand. So good job. You got a participation trophy, so second place.

You know, the view of the second sled dog never changes.

You're right.

That's a bummer. It is a bummer. It's kind of a crappy situation.

Okay. Anyway, back to the reality. But no, he is definitely one of the top three I've ever had in 17 years. And, yeah, that's saying a lot. And I. I tease you about your age being 24 and everything, but the reality is that's rare to have that type of case design at that age with that type of knowledge. Now, granted, he sat next to me for two years. I mean, we're in the same. We hear each other all the time. And that's not a bad thing because I've always been able to help him from the beginning. And most of the time, I mean, maybe once a month I have to go in and go, yeah, that's not quite. And. But that's so rare because he just studies. I mean, his.

I kind of nerd out over that.

You do? It's weird, man. You nerd out over it and finding out index strategies, participation rates, spread all the fine print. How do they really work? Comparing the different software we have, making sure that it truly is what we say it is. Yeah, it's weird. It's. It's weird, but it's good.

I love it.

Is you finally made the top three or something.

Finally made it. Well, I have three siblings, so I'm at least. My. Or two siblings. I'm at least. Yeah, I'm in the top three of my parents favorite kids.

No, definitely top four.

I know. I know. Your little brother. No, that's true. Yeah, he. He would have. He would have.

He would have beat me.

Yeah, he would have. Definitely. He would beat you and Tanner. Definitely.

He did beat us.

Yeah. I was gonna say.

Oh, man. Okay.

Annie. I don't know. Yeah, she's pretty sweet, so I don't know. She's a sweetheart.

So they should be providing you expert level case design. If they're not and you want to see kind of what that could look like for you, reach out. I'd love to talk with you about it. Kind of explain what that Process looks like. And then here's the last one.

Be careful on this one. I have a feeling where you're going with this. And it better not be anything to do with compensation.

Oh, it is.

No good compensation. Not. I'm going to. Here's why I say, okay, go ahead and say what you're going to say.

I'm going to say providing you with good compensation.

Yeah, good compensation. But if they try and entice you by saying, well, I'll give you a quarter above street, that's a bad sign. I always had red flags because here's the reality and most agents do not get this. And I wish they would. If they're cutting corners and compensation by giving you more, then that means their resources available to help agents do better is going to be limited.

Right.

So the relationships we have with software companies that cost us a crazy amount of money and the building and the people and all that, I mean, okay, so I get a quarter less comp or a quarter more comp. But then I don't have somebody answering my calls when I need that case design done. I mean, that's a bad thing, right?

So everything has a cost.

It does. And so you see these and the ones offering these crazy dumb comps and I say that to myself because remember, I could make more, but what am I giving up for that?

Right?

You know, there's been a couple products that come out recently that I didn't have the time to look at before I'm going to my next appointment. So I come and say, hey, there's this new product that just came. I saw my email, tell me about it and they'll tell me about it. Then I can go to that next appointment knowing for a fact I still have the best product. But what am I wanting to give up for that? Nothing.

Right?

You know, my ethics and integrity is far greater than any sort of increase in compensation. I think street is a very fair amount. Why? Because once again, I know what my organization offers. I know what we offer. I know I don't ever want to go, well, I can't hire another person to take care of this agent because I paid too much for comp. And you will write more business if you have better support. There's no doubt about it.

Everything a marketing organization does or uses to help agents write more business costs them something. So if they give away the farm to recruit, you have to wonder, and that is a very logical.

They will cut corners in other areas.

Then what are they really providing to you? Benefit wise agents almost always end out money ahead with a slightly like you're talking, for example, you're, you're taking less than what you could somewhere else, but you're netting more because of what your marketing organization.

So you know, you say, well you write 27 million a year, you should be able to get the highest cost comp that's possible. Yeah, I could, but at what cost?

Right.

And does that mean I don't have access to the things that I have access to now?

Right.

For example, a lot of these people say we have two software things that can cost us a lot of money. And they go yeah, but you know, I want that higher comp. And go, well okay, you don't have that software that your marketer has to help you make sure you don't lose a deal. And if you lose one deal, even a hundred thousand dollar deal, you lose one deal. It's not worth it.

A recruiter calling you up to tell you oh yeah, we'll give you a tick or two or half a percent or a percent or whatever it is.

Above they, if they give you a percent above street, then something's serious. That, yeah, that, yeah, that's. I'm saying bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

They're costing, that will cost you something. So it may seem like you oh well, I just got a raise. No, not necessarily.

No, it will not have the tools available, you will not have the number of products, you will not have the software and you will not, you just won't.

Generally in the industry, comp bumps come on the tail end of large production numbers.

One of the, one of the largest FMOs out there will not. It doesn't matter if you write 10 million a year, 15. They will not go above street. But they have so much available still no good lead systems which I find amazing. But they, they, I mean they're, they're annual events are just top notch, which I don't care, man, I'd rather hang out with my wife than a bunch of people getting drunk. But you know, now I do go to some events that I have some really good relationships with people and I would hang out with them if it wasn't the event.

Sure.

But man, it's just, you give up so much. I'll take volume over a little higher all day long.

Yeah, absolutely. So to recap those five things, training by somebody that is actively in the field and producing at a high level, access to good marketing and lead sources. Again, not to say they need to be a lead company, but they should know lead have relationships. Yeah, exactly.

Because I'LL tell you what, I actually can call the lead companies I use and I can say, hey, because you've got relations, you need to step up the leads for this new person. And they'll do it.

They do.

I had someone that went from number 26 on the list to number two. And so it's because they know if I tell now, you better be producing and you better be have the budget for that. Because if I tell this lead company, these guys are the real deal or this girl's real deal, you better do that because my, my words on the line.

But yeah, you're absolutely right. Number three, providing you with a professional level creative and branding services. Number four, providing you expert case design. And number five, good compensation.

Fair comp.

Fair compensation. And we like to say agents should take home what they earn simultaneously, marketing organizations should retain what they earn.

I have no problem with other, you know, you'll never see me go up to a realtor and go, hey, I want you to take less money. Yeah, I don't. I mean I bought that commercial property and the person literally was a paperwork signer. And so, you know, so am I. Sometimes I'm going to still go through my full process, but sometimes I go in there, people, they just want in a new or two. That's it, they're ready for it. Yeah. So good deal. Well, I help this, I hope this, I hope this helps you. I hope this helps you have a good day, increase your sales. And of course, happy selling.

Sam.