Chad Owen, owner of Annuity Agents Academy, says the DOL fiduciary rule hasn't changed his business because he already used thorough fact-finders and focused on client solutions over product sales. He advises agents to keep training and adapting rather than worry about regulatory uncertainty.
Hello. Chad Owen, owner of Annuity Agents Academy. I've been getting a lot of questions lately, specifically about the DOL or the Department of Labor ruling and how it impacts my business. I know people are asking me, they say, hey, you write over 16 million a year in annuity premiums. What is this doing to your business? And it's real simple. It's not doing anything to my business. It's not changing the way I do anything. I still write over a million, well over a million a month in annuity premiums. And here's why. I've always done complete fact finders. I've always made sure that the product I'm giving is based off of solution. I'm not product pushing. I'm not only selling one particular company. I'm doing what's best for that client situation. And so the biggest problem I see with the Department of Labor ruling right now is how it's affecting some really good agents right now and distracting them from helping clients. Because all they're doing is focusing on what could happen, what possibly could go wrong, how our business possibly could change. And here's the reality. It hasn't happened yet. Yeah, there's things that are supposed to be happening pretty soon, but once again, it hasn't happened yet. And we think about the annuity business. Over the years, we've been doing this. I've been doing this for almost 14 years now. I know people that have been doing this for well over 30 years. And they've told me about how many changes have happened in their lifetime in the annuity production, how many changes have happened and how they just adapt to the current market environment, whatever rules are being made. I mean, we can even think about our applications. They went from really seven pages long to now some of them are 15 to 20 to 30 pages long. Our business changes. But here's the key to the. To anything like the Department of Labor, constantly continue to grow yourself and be better and adapt to current market conditions. Adapt to current changes. This is what's so good about the academy, the Annuity Agents Academy, is because I'm constantly adapting my training and selling style to the current market conditions, whatever's going on. And so I have people that say, well, hey, I've already been to it one time. Should I go again? Absolutely. Because a year later, the conditions are completely different. Everything changes. There's always seasons. The market's up, the market's down. The SEC wants to take over this with 151A. The Department of Labor ruling comes out. There's all sorts of things that are going we are going to face in our industry. But here's what I'd recommend. Continue to better yourself. I spent thousands of dollars in the last month on classes or seminars I went to better myself. Why I need to continually train myself or be trained to train because I'm sitting there trying to adapt to current market conditions myself. So I'm taking what I'm learning. I'm applying it to my business to get better and better. So here's what I think about the Department of Labor ruling. Don't worry about it. If you're really good and you solution sell and you don't product sell, you're going to adapt to this just fine. There's nothing to hide. It's no big deal. So I really think that's the number, number one thing we need to focus on. Just continue to do what we're good at. That's protecting money from market losses, providing an income we provide safety, security, guaranteed income you can never outlive with no risk to the market. What other product does that? Whatever happens in the future, it doesn't matter. We will have to adapt. But once again, this may never even happen. So don't let it affect your current business. Continue to do what you're good at. I hope you have a great day. Thank you for your time.
