Best Practices for Selecting Products and Carriers | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 290

If you're selling annuities on the basis of the product exclusively with little consideration for the carrier that backs it, you're probably hurting your clients in some roundabout way. Welcome back to Seven Figure Annuity Sales. It's Caleb north here with Chad. We're talking today about best practices for selecting products and carriers. And Chad, I can tell you this is something that I, I personally, I spend so much time looking into this kind of stuff. First of all, I mean it's one of my primary roles is helping agents with case design and product selection. And a hu key to that is the carrier behind it. Because truth be told, when you look at a whole client's policy, okay, the whole scenario and the benefits they're getting from it, the quality of the product is one thing, the quality of the carrier is another, and the long term position that that client is in is often dictated more heavily by the carrier quality than the product quality. This is interesting because a really great product for from a poor carrier becomes an iffy policy down the road. I don't know if you've ever experienced.

That, but yeah, that's been some of the biggest frustration, especially recently from really good carriers having major customer service issues. And it's across the board right now. And you know, it's. And I've talked to the presidents of a lot of these companies and the vice presidents and the department heads and they're all very frustrated as well because literally they can't find people that want to work. And if they do want to work, they can't work the way they want. They have this quiet quitting and they have this let's do what we barely need to do to get by to keep our job. And you see these great products, their images. I actually was just texting with a client in the middle of our break and it was, she's frustrated with how she's had her experience with the company. And I would say this year alone I probably spend two to four hours a week just dealing with customer service issues.

Wow.

Now that's because I do tell my clients, I say, hey, you know what? You have any issue whatsoever, you call my cell phone number. So I tell them that. And that's why I have so much because a lot of times people just keep going back to the insurance, coming back the insurance company. But the point is, is these are great products, but then the customer service issues are challenged. But then I've also had times too where, where insurance companies come out with this great phenomenal product quote unquote. And then 10 years later or five years later, you see, the index didn't even remotely perform how it said it.

Was going to perform.

So this balance of trying to know which company is the best, what they're telling you is the truth. I mean, I. I've been. I've been to events with over 300, 400 people in the room where I had to correct the speaker. And I did it one time in front of them while they were on stage. I raised my hand and I said, did you guys include your fee in that product and these? And they said, no, we didn't. I said, then you don't be company A, B, or C. And they said, well, how do you know? Because I know these companies off the top of my head. And I said. And he goes, well, it's not called a fee, it's called a spread. I said, no, sir, in your brochure, it's called a fee. And he goes, thanks for pointing out the dumbest thing we ever did. And long story short, this is a room full of almost 400 people. And I did raise my hand in the middle of it. Why? Because I knew what would happen is this. I KNEW if there's 400 agents in that room, they're going to listen to what that person's saying. And a lot of them, because they don't know that product well enough or they don't know other companies well enough, they're just going to assume that person up there is gospel, and they're going to take everything they heard and they're going to go regurgitate it over to their clients. So if I said every client in there went, or every agent in there went and talked to 10 people, that's 3,000 people getting the wrong information. So I never got invited back to one of those events again. I don't know why. But, you know, it's like, the reality is, my obligation is not to the insurance company, it's not to the agents, it's to the clients. I need to make sure they're getting the right information. So it's our responsibility and as agents to understand how these different products work, how these companies work, how the index works. I mean, I speak at one conference, one time, and I. There's about 80, 70, 80 people in this room. And I opened it up to questions, and this guy raised his hand and asked this question about an index. And I was like, this guy must be brand new. And I said, sir, how long have you been doing this for? And he goes, I've been doing this for 20 years. I said that question you just asked, and I said this in front of everybody, is something that a brand new person should know the answer to. You should not be selling annuities if you don't know the answer to that question. Now some people might say, well, Chad, that's harsh, that's embarrassing. How many people has he messed over in his 20 year career not knowing the answer to that question and putting people in the wrong products, in the wrong situation?

Probably more than he'd be proud to admit.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I'm not saying his heart was in the wrong place, but here's the reality. If you're not taking the time to study how these companies work, picking the right company, seeing the different products that are available, see which ones work for each person in their age, then you should not be doing this business. It'd be like going to a doctor and you're going to trust this doctor to take care of you.

And.

But they haven't read the most. The last medical book they read was 50 years ago.

Right.

Or I forget that. The last medical book they read was a year ago.

Sure, yeah.

Because we know in medicine things change that fast. So why would we, why would we not continually daily, weekly study products, learn what companies are doing. It's what we owe our clients is to do that.

Yeah. You know, this is this topic we talked about back in the early part of January. We went over our five product selection criteria and I'll hit those real quick. But it's financial stability of the company, best customer service, best benefits in the product, and then income, payout or growth potential. And then you add in there the renewal rate integrity. What were you going to say, Chad?

Financial stability, best benefits, best customer service, highest payout rate integrity.

Yep.

So the reason why the financial stability is, number one, is because it doesn't mean anything if your company's not stable. And then of course, best benefits, how does it work for the client? Because you can have poor customer service and still be something that's good for the client. And then that's where I take on the responsibility, making sure customer service is taken care of. The, the, the financial stability and the benefits, I can't control that. I just have to pick the best product. The customer service is something that I can do, I can take care of that. And then of course, making sure that I'm picking the right index, the right solution to the problem, I can control that. And then rate integrity, I can almost control that because I don't pick companies that poor rate integrity. I have Been surprised a few times with companies where I see a rate renewal. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what happened here?

Yep.

So, and fortunately that's happened only a few times and I didn't have a ton of money of my clients money in one of those products. But I hate it when something like that happens because I have no control when they change. I mean if they change leadership or whatever or something financially bad happened. It just happens. I mean I do, I am very clear when I'm highlighting the illustration though. And this is why it's so important to go over illustrations. You show what it currently is and what it could be. Yeah. And you have to show that.

Yeah, yeah. And for those of you that don't know, I actually personally deep dive that topic of renewal rate integrity, how pricing is set, option cost versus option budgets, rates, all that kind of stuff in the annuity architects program in retirement realized agents academy. So go check that out. We deep dive that. But when I was thinking about this topic today, Chad, I was thinking about this, this one question specifically. And I would encourage you all you agents out there to ask yourself this. And it's how, how do I select carriers and products right now?

How do I marketer tells me.

And that's truth be told, that's I, I imagine there's going to be a lot of listeners that if they're real honest with themselves, they would say, well this is what my IMO says or this is what my marketer tells me or I had a good conversation with this internal wholesaler. And so then the follow up question should logically be, well, how are they determining what products and carriers they're promoting? So if you don't know the heart posture, the character, the integrity of the company that's making the recommendations to you, how can you trust the recommendations they're making to make those to your clients?

Tell me that one thing you found out about why some companies push a particular index.

Okay, so this is a, and this is a carrier thing. Talked about this oh gosh. A few weeks ago on the podcast as well. But when a carrier has an index strategy as an option in their product, they need to have a certain amount of money allocated to that index because they go into agreements with the index provider. So if it's S and P, Standard and Poor's, if it's Barclays, if it's Fidelity, if it's, you know, blackrock, it doesn't really matter who the index provider is. They go into agreements with an assumption that there's going to be a certain amount of price premium allocated to that index. And these carriers are incentivized to try to hit that target. They need to hit that target. And index strategies that don't get allocated to end up coming off the products. Okay. And so you actually probably see that you can go and you can look at, you know, if you sold a policy 20 years ago, if the product happened to still be around, or even 10 years ago, if the product happens to still be around, look at the renewal options you have on the policy that was sold back then versus the new money opportunities you have now. The strategies change because sometimes they just don't get allocated to. Well, these carriers are coming out with these new strategies, working with these index providers to launch new strategies, because from a marketing perspective, it gets a lot of momentum. But then once they've garnered that momentum, they have to get the allocation, otherwise it eventually falls off.

And it's not necessarily saying that the index they're promoting is bad.

Not necessarily.

We're not saying that.

You're saying.

It's just interesting how they're almost obligated to make sure that index works as far as they put enough of the client's money into that. And there's been times too where I've seen people, or agents or not agents, marketers push a particular index and it was, it was phenomenal. So, you know, it's important to understand we are not saying they're doing it with ill intent. It's just interesting how they have to do that.

Yeah. If agents ask me and I have them ask me, caleb, how do you think I should allocate to this? I don't just pull something out of thin air and give it to them. I actually have a logically based, explainable reason as to why I recommend a certain allocation for a particular product. And if that's mix of fixed rate and strategies or if that's indexes or, you know, mix of indexes, whatever the. Or a single one, there's always an explanation as to why. I'm not just trying to tell agents, you know, flippantly. Because at the end of the day, Chad, I tell agents this all the time in Retirement Realized Financial. And this is actually is a testament to you. So hype you up for a second. Chad's in the field just like all you guys that are listening. So Chad launches Retirement Realized Financial as an fmo. He's an agent. So how do you think the culture in the operations of Retirement Realized Financial is going to be determined? We operate. We're owned by an agent so our mentality is often around the same types of things that agents are concerned about. So what does that mean? Client first, number one. Every time when I'm recommending products, I thinking about the client, not retirement realized financial, not the agent, thinking about the client, the agent second. And then the IMO is third and last. And that's the way I approach product selection. I've heard horror stories, Chad, about IMO's that will literally print out a sheet of paper for their marketers with product number one, product number two, and they have their override spread next to it. And you'll notice you look at these sheets sometimes and it'll be the biggest spread at the top. I had a, I had a wholesaler and I've had agents tell me they worked at, they worked with IMOs that did this and they'll literally go through and if, if an agent comes to them with a case, if it meets like if that those parameters fit product one, they're going to tell them product one regardless of any consideration for what the client's looking for. And then they go down that list in order of who pays the IMO the most. That kind of organization is out there. Those things are real.

And if they're the ones, it's actually pretty common. It is, unfortunately. It is, yeah. The, the ethical and the people with high ethics and integrity is actually unfortunately a smaller group of people, a smaller group of FMOs. And there, there are, they definitely are out there. There are a couple FMOs that were just above reproach. They're phenomenal. They weren't agent owned, but they were still. You know, there's some really good ones out there. But man, there are some, there's some dealers out there and I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop calling them. You know how I call brokers, bookies? I'm gonna call FMOs dealers, dealers. You know, what are they dealing, man? What is, what is the latest, what's the little thing that they're dealing to you? But you know, they really are, they're dealers. And you do have some people that are really out there to do the right thing. But then you do have FMOs out there that are purely about the bottom line.

Right?

And it's true. I mean, how, how often do you hear me talk about the bottom line? The bot of always product, you know.

It'S not client related.

It's not. Yeah, yeah. It's not like how much are we making? You know, what's our spread on everything? It's always, are we getting the Best product out there to the client. Is there anything new? What's the little glitches in this one? What's the strong points in this product? It's all about that. Yeah.

Yeah, it is. And so I say that not to. Well, I hope that one. That. I hope that is an encouragement for the agents that are a part of Retirement Realized Financial that you can sleep at night knowing that if you're working with me from a product selection and case design perspective, that is how I'm coming to the. To the table every single day with your clients in mind first and doing it with you second and us last, quite frankly. But for those of you that are good.

Yeah. And Caleb has a long ways to go. He's really working hard to try and get to heaven. So he's doing the right thing.

You know, he's got to. He's got to get. He's got to work really hard. When you know Caleb, you know. Yeah. Every brick counts for him. And so that's fun. Every case design he does right. Is another. Another good brick in heaven.

Well, ask yourself that question. How do I select products and carriers right now? We shared the five criteria that we look for here at Retirement Realize. And if you're getting those products that you're selling your clients based on the recommendation of a wholesaler who's obviously trying to push their carriers products, or from your IMO where you may or may not trust the character and the integrity and ethics behind it, then you know what, give us a call. Be happy to talk with you and see if we can find some better options for you out there.

Absolutely. And shameless plug. You got to go to Retirement Realized Financial. And look at our new training platform we have. It is awesome.

Agents Academy. Yeah. Retirement Realized Agents Academy.

See, this is. I didn't do it. So I don't know, this is where you guys got to do it. Okay. Retirement Realized Agents Academy. And so we don't have a link on Retirement Realized Financial to go to retirement. Reliance Agents Academy.

Yeah. You can click training from there.

Well, there you go. See, I was right.

It works.

I'm trying to do it more. Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, I hope this helps you guys and help Caleb get into heaven by. Yeah, let him do some good case design.

Pray for me, guys. I need. I need the prayers and I'm also working with Chad, so I need double the amount of prayers.

Good one. Good one. Have a great day and happy selling.

It.