How To Book More Appointments | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 163

Hey, everyone. Today we are going to talk about how to book more qualified appointments.

Welcome back to this week's episode. I am Chad Owen, the annuity sales coach. And boy, that was really struggling. I'm the annuity sales coach. I'm the annuity sales coach. See? You know what? And radio.

Well, no, no, radio voice.

Radio voice. Hey, this is. I do that all the time. But as you know, we are just a normal group of guys. Just. Well, a group of two.

A group of two. Yes. But we love having fun. We love doing this. And as you can see, Boy Wonder still has the dead caterpillar on his lip. Yeah.

So if you're not watching on YouTube, you need to.

Yes. Or do you really. You may be saving yourself a lot of trouble.

I'm concerned this thing may just break the Internet with how much traffic goes to the YouTube channel. Just see the mustache.

You know what, Just because something breaks the Internet does not mean it's a good thing. So there's a lot of things that break the Internet. I mean, what is the thing now? Like Karen. Is it Karen or something?

Karen is like a term used for crazy women. Like, kind of like. I don't really know how to describe.

It, but yeah, I just. I keep seeing Karen and I'm like, what is this Karen thing?

Karen?

You know, I really. I got to get up to date on some of this.

Chad Chat's the male version of Karen. Just kidding.

Wow. Okay, so next week's episode, you will see just Caleb on the street corner asking for food.

Yeah.

So, okay, what are we going to talk about today?

Oh, well, we're talking about how to book more appointments. Everybody needs to know how do I actually take the lead I've got, and how do I convert those practically to more meetings, to more appointments and more effective meetings. That's right. There's really three good ways, I think, to break this down. And it's funny that didn't we talk.

About last time, three good ways to do something?

We talked about three good ways to increase your annuity production.

So now, realistically, there's more things.

There's two best ways and one okay way.

I don't even know if that was an okay. Okay, so what are the three things that. That are most effective? Because we always. Once again, there's way more than three. Absolutely. If you go through our platform, you can see there's way more than three. But. Okay, what are the three most effective ways?

Number one, build your expertise and stop talking.

Number one, gotta give them the full experience you need to watch YouTube.

Okay, go ahead, build your expertise and stop talking.

I mean, that would be a good thing for you to do.

So we're on a tear today, so.

Too much caffeine pumping through these veins.

I think it is too. Yes.

But seriously, you know, one of the things you do really, really well is you explain to your prospects, your leads, whatever that is, that you are absolutely an expert. You're absolutely qualified to help them in this area. You open it up for them to ask their questions and talk.

Always. Because an expert is not an expert if you don't know what your client needs.

Yeah, they don't want a monologue.

No.

They don't want to listen to you ramble on and on and on and on about what you do and how you do it until the proper time. They reached out for a reason.

Yep. Correct.

Right. So if you don't ask them what the reason is or what questions they have, you're not going to know what it is to actually be able to help them with.

Yeah, it's funny because I always lead with that in the beginning. Hey, this is Chad Owen from XYZ lead company. You went to my website, you spoke with so and so you had some questions about annuities. I'm an expert in this area. What questions can I answer for you? Yeah, no matter what type of lead. Because it's funny, you know, they'll go, well, what do you do for this type lead? What do you do for that type of lead? What do you do? The same thing.

It's always. It's a process. It's always a process. Everything is.

Yep, it is everything. Well, everything that's done right is a process.

Yeah.

You know, when you're sporadic and you're inconsistent, it never works well.

And that's the beautiful thing about the training platform is then it's can be just plugged and played.

Yeah.

I mean, you talk about a process. That's the thing about a process is it can be implemented. It's not just these theoretical ideas. No, it's. This is how to do this thing. You learn how to do it, then you do it and you see, you see the benefits of it. So that's. That's great.

Okay.

Reach out about retirement, realized agents academy, shameless plug.

But that goes into the next part, Right. If we're asking them questions, you're opening the opportunity for them to actually discuss. They reached out the questions that they do have and obviously you're going to answer those questions. That's the second thing. Answer their questions. Generally but then always you follow it back up with your own questions to them.

Correct. And you want to make sure you're not going on too long about the questions. I mean, there's two reasons why. Number one, time is very limited when you're making calls. So I generally do from 3 to 7:30 now, I'll be honest with you, I've actually been going 5:30 to 7:30 lately because my lead flow is greatly diminished. And just so you know, we're ending out of summer. It's going to pick up. Don't worry. I've experienced this for 17 years. June, July and August. I'm sitting there going, oh my gosh, I pay the same amount for leads. I'm just not getting anything in what's going on. And then September, October, November, December, all sudden, everybody wants to meet with you. So that's. It's normal. Don't freak out. Don't go calling your lead companies saying, where am I getting all my leads? It just slows down. I mean, I'm. A lot of these Internet lead sources I have, I'm used to two to three leads a week from each of them.

Yeah.

Now I'm lucky if I get one.

Right.

But. And then also the market doesn't help with that. That's the thing when you're having not a lot of fluctuation then also, and you start to see some major drops and you see a whole bunch of people just inquiring about what you do.

But it is a double whammy right now because it's summer and a month it is.

But make sure you're not going on and on and on. Some often when people are on the phone, they're trying to be a friend. Most people do not want a friend, they want an expert. Now often I have clients that I end up having really good relationships with. But the first thing, my number one concern is, can I help you? And that's where the expert comes in. Yeah.

And always following your answers up with your own questions. When you're on the phone or you're in any conversation, the person that's asking the questions is the one that's controlling the conversation. And it's less about being in control as much as it is guiding and leading.

Yeah. I say it's very little about being in control other than the fact of if you're not, if you're the expert, you need to find out what the problem is.

Right.

So some people would call that control. I call it leading. You know, I'm not trying to control it. I'm trying to lead it. Right, That's a good one. I use that one before.

Well, here's the thing. When you are able to find out what the problem is in the call, then you're able to explain how meeting in person, or if you're doing virtual meeting over a virtual appointment or whatever that is actually going to. And having the appointment is. You're, you're setting that up to be where you're going to address the concern. So you're creating value for that part.

Of the process that might be a good small training course inside the platform is just, you know, how the difference between controlling the process and leading the process.

Yeah.

So, yeah, remember that one?

That's very good.

Yeah.

We will. Shameless Plug number two, Reach out for a business strategy session. Go to the annuitysalescoach.com click on free resources and sign up for a business strategy session where I will get on the phone personally with you, break down what you're currently doing and explain some things based on Chad's process that you can do right now to increase your annuity production.

Yep. That's where the inner circle comes in.

That's true. It's true.

I love helping people progress beyond what they thought was possible. And I see that all the time. Well, I think I want to do 5 million a year. I'm doing 12 million a year. I'm doing 14 million a year. I mean, it's just so rewarding to watch that happen because not only does it improve your clients lifestyle because they're protected now, your family, your charities that you support, everything that you do revolves around that success, which is incredible.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. You know, actually talking through this chat about the essence of the first call and booking the appointment reminds me we have a free document in theannuitysalescoach.com under the free Resources tab that actually explains to them how they can build their own scripted first call based on this type of process. The exact scripts, the exact process, obviously that's in the academy, but for them to build their own, you can go and download that today and start doing that. The third part, assume you're going to get the appointment before you tell them you're booking the appointment. If you go into it apologetically, like you feel like it's an inconvenience to them, you're not gonna get the appointment because they're gonna pick up on that. You've got to assume that you are getting the appointment because you're bringing value to Them, they need to meet with you. They wouldn't have reached out if they didn't think they did.

So I hear, I hear agents often say, hey, you know what, Is it possible we could meet at this time? Does this time appear to work for you? Maybe, Likely, possibly. Those are words you don't use. I'm available this time to this time. Now what I will not do and I never have done when I was in Protection, they used to tell you to say, well, I'm really booked next week and I can squeeze you in at this time. And it was a complete lie because a lot of these people maybe only ran appointments two times a week. Don't say that. Yeah, if you're available, then don't say you're not available. But what I would say because of how far or how big my territory is, I would say I'm in Austin on this day.

Right?

I'm in San Antonio on this day. I have this time. And this time, which one works better for you? Right. And that's a factual statement. That is so. I mean, but also, there's also exceptions to that too. I have one appointment that I decided to meet at 10 o' clock in the morning and then my next appointments an hour and a half way. So that happens as well. But don't make stuff up because people deserve better, number one. Number two, subconscious picks up things or something doesn't feel right and you wonder why they didn't show for the appointment or they don't trust you when you get there, it's because you led with a lie. Yeah. And anytime you lead with a lie, people will pick up on that.

Absolutely. The subconscious mind in human beings is pretty remarkable at picking up on phonies.

They call it intuition, perception, you know, revelation, whatever it is. They will pick up on that.

Yeah, absolutely.

And they deserve better. I mean, don't ever lead anything with a lie.

Well, you got to understand, you're not a salesman. You don't. You're not a salesman for an insurance company. You're running a business. That needs to be the mindset. As a business owner, manager, whatever that looks like, you need to handle it with the utmost. Oh, gosh, I'm drawing an absolute word.

Ethics, integrity.

Well, ethics, integrity, but morals, values, service. And there's a word that starts with a C that I for the life of me cannot think of. I'm going to think about it here in an hour when I'm sitting at my desk or something.

Let's just move to the next one.

That said, three things to recap, build your expertise. Stop talking. Let them ask their questions. When they're asking their questions, answer them generally, but always follow it. Back up with your own questions. And then be smooth. Don't have your fillers. That's why you got to rehearse and actually go over your scripts. Because you don't want it to be a deal where you're sitting there and you're just reading off your computer. Hey, I am. You know what I mean?

You got to be fluid.

Got to be fluid. So ingrain it in your brain.

But. And because once again, the subconscious, those are called fillers. So the subconscious picks up that you're not comfortable with what you're talking about. Yep, you don't know what you're talking about. So you have to have a filler. Silence is better than a filler. So if I say, hey, you know what I'm gonna talk about? You do that, or what am I gonna talk about? Or what I'm gonna. But you just. You got to make sure you use silence over fillers. And it's. It's a reality. I mean, there's times I have so many things going on where I forget just like what you did. I forget what I'm going to be talking about. And it'll be mid sentence. And you know what? You can't say. It's an age thing. It could be a busy thing. It could be. I mean, mom brain. You know, my wife, she'll be talking. This was when we had little kids, and she just would forget something. And it wasn't age. She was exhausted and tired, and she was very busy. And your brain just sometimes she calls it hard drives full. You know, back in the day, if you look at computers, they used to do something called defragging. And so you'd have to press this button. And what it does, basically the easy way to explain it is if you had a whole bunch of different colored socks in a drawer that you'd go and put them in their right color segment. Like, I walk in our closet. My wife does everything color coordinated. This is where T shirts are color corrected. This is where the dress shirts are in color. And I love it because I can go to, hey, I feel like wearing a black shirt today, which.

That'S most of the day.

Black T shirts, black. But the point is, it's very well organized. Well, there's times when we get so many things going on on our brain when that's why you've got to study your script, because your socks are unorganized. Your Script is not set in order because I can tell you, it's just like I do my applications. My applications. I always do the application, then I do the suitability form, then I do the disclosures, then I do the transfer forms, then I do the replacement. So no matter what company I'm using, I print them out. I print out a master one. I sort them in those that order, and then I make my master copy no matter what. Because you have some companies that the suitability form will be the last thing that's on the application. Want consistency. Why? When I open up, I bring that application and I get it in order. Now, fortunately, most E apps now are organized in that way. So it's very simple. But still, 50% of my applications are still handwritten. And why is that? Because I have a cheat sheet that we give to people that are in the academy that tell me which companies will accept E signatures, which companies that won't. Now I am starting to get to the point where instead of carrying a whole application for a whole bunch of multiple applications, I will just carry the transfer forms and then get the wet signature that way. But there's still times where I'm out in the middle of nowhere and they don't have good cell phone or Internet in that area.

Right.

So I still carry my hard copy. Once again, you can tell. Very systematic, very process driven. And so when you're making your calls, make sure it's okay. We're gonna find out. You called me from this company, you said you spoke to this person. You said maybe I might even go. You said you had this concern about market volatility. And then I'm an expert in this area. What questions? That's the system. Every single time. Now, once again, it is the power process. But we go into much, much more detail on that because often you'll get a lot of objections right after that of some sort, hey, just send me the information. I don't want to meet in person. There's all sorts of things that we can. So we also teach you how to handle that as well.

Yep.

So remember, when you're doing this, it's smooth. What is. I'm trying to remember. I've done crop for years. I haven't done two years. But they used to say slow is smooth, smooth is fast. So the. What? You know, if I sit there and try and rush into something, I'm gonna. It's gonna seem chaotic and seem like it's gonna make the customer feel uncomfortable. Right. But if I take my time and I'm methodical on that. They're gonna go. This is really smooth.

Absolutely.

So is that it? That's it. Okay, good. I appreciate your time, everyone. And of course, happy selling.

Sam.