How and Why to Track Your Numbers | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 160

Hey, everyone. Welcome to this week's podcast. I am Chad Owen, the annuity sales coach, and right next to me is Caleb North.

Hey, I get my actual name now.

Boy wonder.

There it is.

So what are we talking about today, Caleb?

We're going to talk about something that you do that a lot of agents don't want to spend their time doing, but they should, and that is buying leads. Yeah, well, that's fair. Running appointments, they want. They all want to do that.

Studying product.

That one is another one they don't necessarily like. Yeah, that's not fun either.

So what are we talking about?

We're talking about tracking. Tracking numbers, production, lead flow, lead costs, like, all across the board. The fuel, in essence, for your business. We're talking about tracking those numbers, kind of how to do it, which I can break that down, but the why behind it. So give us the why, Chad. Why?

Track number motivates me.

Do I think it motivates you? Yeah, I think seeing the numbers and the results can. I don't think that the process of actually, like, filling out your sheets each week motivates you.

No number motivates me.

Okay.

Tracking does not motivate.

So if you were to look at, say, June of 2021 and see that you were 3 million behind where you.

Were June of 2020, see, that demotivates.

Would that motivate you to. Not at all. Okay, well, that's not a true number. It's just a.

It is. I mean, you know, I had a really big month in May of 2029 million. But the way I look at this is tracking makes me aware of what's working and what's not.

Okay?

So I'm looking at my appointment setting ratio. I'm looking at my applications, dollars per appointment, the application closing. It's letting me know where I need to train myself or revisit something. So if I'm getting a lot of appointments and I get. So I have my leads and then I get a lot of appointments, but I'm not getting them to actually show up, then that tells me I'm not building a value on why they need to meet with me. Because the only way I'm going to ever agree that they're going to meet with me is if, you know, there's a problem.

If they need my help. Because I will say, I mean, you know this. I call a lot of people and they don't have enough money or their situation just won't work. So I don't meet with them. Right. So you go, well, that Messes with your appointment percentage. Absolutely. It does, right? I mean, it makes it look like I'm not making the most of each of my leads, but I am because I'm only meeting with people that I can actually provide a solution to the problem. So trackers, they don't motivate me at all.

Okay, well, that's good. But they are for the indicators.

That's it. So it tells me which lead source is effective. Yeah, yeah, it tells me if a.

Lead source is even profitable.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, I've spent, Lord have mercy on that one.

Millions on lead companies that were not effective. I mean, if I tell you lead companies gonna work, it's because I personally have used it or I know someone who's very successful. For example, seminars. I don't do seminars, but I know a lot of really good agents that are really effective at using seminars. We actually have agents that work with us that use seminars.

We do.

So I know how to do that, but I just don't. Seminars because I already have enough leads. I know cry for me, feel bad, but I do. I already have my 20% surplus in leads. Except in the summer.

That's true. Summertime gets slow.

It always gets slow. But the people that are willing to meet with you are very serious.

That's true.

So I have some really big deals in the summer. But when we're talking about trackers, it's always important to know what your money is doing for you. In other words, this lead source is good, right where you need to improve that. So I guess in an indirect way you could say they do motivate me because it tells me where I need to improve in a particular area. I mean, I go through the same things everybody else does. I mean, I had an agent running appointments with me a few weeks ago and he said, wow, you don't have everybody that just signs up and says, hey, I want to do what you're telling me to do? No, I go through the full thing every single time. We had three, two very challenging appointments.

Yeah, I remember hearing about it.

One alright appointment and one incredible appointment. But I mean, to put it in perspective, we had an appointment that lasted five minutes. He wouldn't give any information. He had plenty of money. He had plenty of money. He was probably a multimillionaire, but he wouldn't give me any information. So I'm like, fine. And I talked to this gentleman afterwards in my agent and I said, what would have you. What did you notice about that? What would have you done differently? And he goes Well, I would have probably tried to get the sale. And I said, I'm not. I'm trying to find a solution to the problem. So if I don't know what the problem is, how can I ever find a solution? And you could see the saying clicked in his eyes. Like, this guy, he's going to be a rock star. He's already doing great, but he's going to be incredible. I don't say that. I mean, if anybody. I'm sorry, if one of you are on that, you know, told me I'm gonna do 5 million years and. No, you're not. What are you saying? I'm not gonna. No, you just don't have the drive. You're not gonna study. You won't spend the money in leads. You're not gonna do 5 million a year. I mean, I'll say it, but when I say somebody's good, I'm telling you, there's a reason why I've seen thousands of agents, and I know who's gonna make it and who's not. They still have to do what I tell them to do. They still have to apply the principles.

Right?

But, you know, even tracking, I mean, there are so many agents I used to work with, mortgage protection, insurance, and every single week, the people that were given the leads had to beg for their numbers. So finally they said, hey, if you don't give me your numbers for the tracker, you're not getting leads this week. It's amazing how quick they started doing trackers.

Phenomenal.

But then you start to think about, are the numbers you've given actually real? My numbers are 100% real. They are what they are. Down to the tenth of a percent.

Yeah. Down to the hundredth of a hundredth of a percent.

Well, there you go.

Down to the hundredth of a percent. Down the percent. The penny of.

Yeah. Do I go down to pennies?

We go down to pennies.

Where's that?

We'd go down to double decimals on everything. You're written, you're sold, or you're. Yeah. Which is the same.

You're sold, but the dollars stay at zero, zero. You don't go down the pennies.

That's what a penny is.01 is a penny.

I know that, but it's right there. It says 349,875.0.

That's just how the math worked out, which is. That's Chad's average case size. For those of you who are wondering, what is that? Yeah, the $300, almost $50,000 is Chad's average case size. 349,875. Look at your issued amount, year to date, which I need to go in and I need to add the issued amounts. Okay.

But you're at 13 million 700. Wow. So it did. It just happened. Zero. Yeah. That is a trip.

Yeah.

Well, okay. There you go. I stand somewhat corrected.

Yep.

Okay, so the trackers, you know, I'm just very particular on those. I want them done right. And Caleb and I are constantly, every week, tweaking those a little bit if we need to. If we say, hey, you know what, why don't we start tracking this? Yeah. And we'll do it. We do track every lead system, even the brand, brand new ones we're trying out, which were. I'm hoping to start another one here soon.

Yeah.

But especially if these leads don't pick up, man.

Yeah, the summers are slow.

Yeah, they are slow. But you know what? Then you get into September and October, you go, wow, they're just falling out of the sky now. It happened. And every year I'm surprised, too. I. 17 years of doing this, I'm still surprised when September and October come around and you're going, wow, I'm getting all these leads coming in. It's because summer's over, grandkids went back home. That's true. Especially now. Right. I can't even imagine what that's like now.

Really, what you need to know about the trackers is it's data input to give you data output. I mean, you figure out what do you want to measure and then what do you need to actually keep track of to measure those things? For example, appointment rate. You need to know how many leads you get in and then how many appointments you set. It's pretty simple.

Which.

What.

Which is interesting because to me, there's a lot of people that will write annuities for 10 grand, you know, so there's a lot of. If you don't have 50,000 emergency funds and savings, 50,000 vegetable amounts. That was. I just say, hey, I'm not going to be able to help you there. Yeah. So that messes with my annuity appointment percentage. You know, the Number of leads versus number of appointments I only sat on every. What, 35.28%. Right.

Right. Now you're. You. And you always fluctuate.

Yeah.

Between about 35 and 42%.

Yeah.

Any given point of the year, it's between kind of that range.

It was. Because it was at 42, now dropped down to 35. You know why why is that? Summertime.

That's fair.

A lot of people actually schedule appointments and then they no show. Yeah. Because, oh, we're going out of town or hey, we decided to stay longer. So that's, that's interesting.

Yep. But when you factor in people you can't even get in touch with, that looks like three and a half out of ten leads you're actually booking appointments with.

No, I don't get in touch with every single person. I would say probably 40% I don't even get in touch with.

So then you've got. You're already down to 60% of your lead. So if you have a 40% appointment rate on 60% of your leads, that's actually four out of six. That's two thirds.

I'll take that. That's okay.

That's 66 some odd percent.

I feel better now. Because of a tracker.

Yeah, there you go. But that's the point. Okay. And so Chad, you're tracking, obviously appoint SIT rate, application percentage as well. And you track this, all of these metrics across every lead source. Okay. We get down to the written premium amount, the average premium amount per application for each lead source. You've got your issued amount and then we track it month to month and year to year. So there is so much, contrary to.

Your popular belief, not every case gets issued. Like I've had some cases. And I mean, it doesn't matter because it fluctuates all the time, but.

Right.

I had a two million dollar case, I wrote one million and a quarter where when I left the house about three or four days later, the guy called me and they decided to get a divorce. You know, so I mean, those are things you just can't control.

So true.

You know, you just. There's no way around that.

Yeah. So how can you track your metrics, your numbers? You see what we're doing, you see why it's important, but how can you actually do it? Well, there's an element of. Think through it and like I said earlier, figure out what are you actually trying to measure and see and then figure out what you need to input to calculate those things. Or give me a call. 512-798-3500, extension 5.

I didn't even know our office number.

512-798-3500,. Extension 5. Almost had a mind blank there.

But there's pretty much a consistent mind blank there.

I assure you there's some empty space.

There is, you know, bouncing around. I have it too. Yeah, I get lost in the Cloud many times.

But I would. I would love to chat with you about that and actually look at what.

Your business development it is. We go.

We can. Yeah, we can make those what they need to be. Usually in those business strategy sessions, what I do is I get a picture for what their business looks like. I look at what I know of yours and areas where there is very clearly room for improvement, and then give them strategy to actually shore those things up and improve those. Now, I will say part of those questions, part of actually figuring out where the holes is, is asking questions. Let's say Hypothetically, you get 10 leads in how many would you expect to get appointments with? Oh, I'd probably book two appointments. Okay, well, then we need to probably work on the phone process. You know what I mean?

In my head, I'm already thinking that, dang, that's. You need to work on the phone process right there.

Yeah. If somebody comes and they say, well, out of 10, let's say I actually get in contact with six, I think I'd book five. Wow, that's a. That's pretty good. You're probably really good on the phones now. Of those five, how many do you think you would actually end up eventually closing? And how many appointments would it take to get there? It'd probably take me four appointments, but I think I could close two. It's like, well, okay, now we got to work on appointment process here because that's. That's way more appointments than is necessary. And two out of five. Five is quite frankly, pretty low. So there's things. All. The point is the data actually shows you where the holes are, and we can look at those together. So like I say, give me a call.

Absolutely. Let's help them.

Let's do it. That's what we're here for.

So is that kind of what we're talking about today is just the trackers?

That's what we're talking about.

So we have no more time to stall. So that means we need to say, hey, we don't just waste time to waste time. We're done for the day. We're pretty close to the time.

But I always shoot for 15 minutes.

We do. That's kind of. We went over. So see, now we're wasting more time. Have a great day and happy selling.