How to Build a Fact Finder | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 145

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to this week's podcast. And, man, I blasted that out. Poor little audio guy is going to be shaking his head because I just spoke too loud. So we like to do that. We got to keep them on their toes. They don't need coffee. We just have to go boom. Yeah.

And then they're all.

Yes, exactly. Yep. Okay, well, what are we talking about today?

Today we're going to talk about something we actually have a document for. Okay, so I want to preface this.

Don't we have a document for pretty much everything?

We do. We've got.

Basically, why is this.

It's funny. This one we actually have two documents for.

Okay.

We're talking about how to build a fact finder. Now, if you're in the academy already, you already have access to the exact fact finder that Chad uses in his appointments.

If you're not, why would you pick anything else and try and reinvent the wheel again? I mean, come on, just become part of the academy, and then you don't need to worry about building your own.

But for those of you that are podcast listeners exclusively, we figured, you know what? We do have a document that explains how an agent can build their own fact finder.

And if you're part of the academy, it's included.

You get it included. It's true. But we've got a document on theannuitysalescoach.com that you can go and download, and it literally explains to you, step by step, how to build a fact finder. And what I want to do today is give them just the audio version of. Of that document. In essence, how to build a fact finder. So, Chad, walk us through. I mean, you built your fact finder.

Well, building.

Well, it's ever evolving.

Yeah, right.

We call it the ever evolving.

There's never. I mean, if this was a building, I'd be. And it looked like a building, I'd be tearing floors down and ripping out new pieces, putting news back in. I mean, it. Look, it looked totally modular. Yeah.

Always something to add and take out all the time.

Well, because a lot of it actually has to do with market conditions.

It does.

So. And the way you ask questions, I mean, to me. And I'll give you a freebie. I mean, I have a question that I just started was, what was that? Ooh, freebie. We don't need little push buttons.

No, we don't. I'll be the sound guy.

But it's. You know, people would always ask, so what's your risk tolerance? Or they'd Say on a scale 1 to 10, you know, 1 being you don't want to lose any of your money. 10, you're willing to lose everything. I just say, are you willing to lose all of your money, some of your money, and none of your money? Right. It always gets a chuckle.

Right.

Well, I don't want to lose any of my money. Okay, then why are you in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds if you said you don't want to lose anything? You know, you know, those all have a potential to lose. Huh. I never really thought of that.

Yeah, it's like a light bulb moment.

It is a light bulb moment. Yeah.

Well. And I like it. It's not, it's not a manipulative question, but it does.

I do want to lose all your money, some of your money, and none of your money. How's that ever. It's not a manipulative question.

I know, but I know a lot of, like, agents because if, if an agent gets in the mindset where you're.

Going with this one, an agent gets.

In the mindset of I'm, I'm just trying to get a sale, then it becomes sales tactics.

Fair enough.

And a lot of times sales tactics have to do, at least in part, with some level of manipulation.

But. Right.

But if you're truly out for what's best for them, that's why, then you.

Can ask solution person, not a salesperson. Yep. Yes. Okay.

So it all comes full circle. But first thing, obviously Chad, and I would imagine you'd agree to this is you.

I don't know. You're starting to see some things so far that I'm not sure about.

You've got to figure out what line of business you're even doing it right now.

Sure.

Yeah. And a lot of agents, they spread out. They'll do aum, they'll do annuities, they'll do life, they'll do Medicare final expense. Right. They'll do all these different things. And you can build fact finders that can kind of help you cross sell. And we actually have one of those too.

If you're part of the academy, in.

The academy, you can get in there and you can get the life insurance factor finder that helps you cross sell into an annuity if it's the right fit for your client, etc. So you can build these in a way that kind of are a little bit more encompassing than just one line. But that's the first thing you need to know what type of product you're trying to position, and then what you need to know to figure out what is going on.

I want to add to that too, because there's a lot of times people use like Social Security seminars and the only reason they're asking about Social Security is so they can find out where the annuity is. Now that bait and switch is drives clients nuts. And I hear all the time, sure, if your annuities going for annuities, if they need help in other areas, then fine, right? If you're talking about Social Security, help them with Social Security. If you find something else, fine. But make sure why they called you, you do it right. If they, if they want life insurance, then make sure you're talking about life insurance. If you can get an annuity, then obviously if you see that problem and you have a solution to, then help them. But don't go in there with a life insurance lead only going after the annuity. And that's what I see unfortunately with the Social Security leads or the Medicare leads is they're not even really going to help with the Social Security or the Medicare. They're just going in straight for the annuity. I'm like, no, go in there for the primary purpose first and then through the process of fact finder, find out if there's other areas you can help them.

Yep, that's exactly right. And that's what the fact finder does. And so when you're building that, again, you've got to know what are you trying to help them with? Is it their Medicare, Is it their life insurance? Is it their assets? Is it, you know, whatever it may be, is it an annuity? Are they, are they, is that what they're wanting? Is that what they're looking for? And sometimes you'll come across people, I would imagine you don't do any life insurance leads specifically. You don't get Medicare leads. All your stuff is annuity specific from the start. But when you were doing that, because your background was actually in, in mortgage protection.

Right. Oh, man, the, the last year. So let's see. I started in 2004. So 2004, five, six. So 2006, 2007 is when I started getting into the annuity business. Heavy. So 2007, I wrote 5.9 million of annuities off of life insurance leads.

I thought it was 2008.

No, 2008 is when I started getting officially. That's why I say I wrote this amount of volume since 2008 because that's when I really focused on just annuities. Yeah, I think I wrote, I mean, I probably wrote about 10 million, 10 or 11 million in annuities, my first four years just off of life insurance leads. And then 2008 is when I really hit the annuity business and I didn't get, I don't recall any more life insurance leads from 2008 on.

Right, well, and again, going back into those, those life insurance appointments that you did end up cross selling an annuity is because you were able to figure out what is a problem here and how can I solve that problem?

Absolutely.

That's what it's all about. But you have to address the prior, the first concern.

Back in those days, I used to be able to do an annuity and life insurance annual in an hour. Right. And move on to my next appointment. Because annuities back then, they didn't have a whole bunch of the income riders and all the different indices. And now, now they have a lot more indices, a lot more options. So I mean I, I usually have about an hour. My minimum appointment is 45 minutes. I can get all the, I can explain everything in 2025.

It has to do with questions.

But yeah, once I'm going over questions, it's pretty normal. They're hour, hour and a half long. Yeah.

Okay, well, and with the fact finder then, now that you've determined what line of business you're working, you've got to figure out what do you need to know about this client and their situation to figure out what product in that line of business is going to be best?

Sure.

The fact finder. The fact finder is not so much a sales tool I guess as it.

Is, it's a problem finding tool. It's not a sales tool, it's a problem finding.

It figures out where's the hole here and how do we. The beauty of the fact finder though too is if you build a fact finder the right way, not only does it find the problem, but it obviously helps give the parameters for what the solution has to be.

And the problem I find with most people's fact finders is they get into the sales part of it way too quick. In other words, they're trying to sell something before they even know what the problem is. And that's why I don't like the seller sales part of it. You're literally trying to find out what is their circumstance. I mean, it's kind of like dating, right? Dating. You're gonna find out, hey, what's your likes, your dislikes, what do you, what are your dreams, what are your hopes? And then you can sell yourself, say Well, I just happen to be one of those guys that can cover those spots. That's why I've been married for 28 years.

That's right. Well, it's funny you mentioned kind of getting into the sales part because. Too quickly.

Yeah, too quickly. Well, first of all, the problem is they get into a sales well, that's fair.

And they're trying to just close a deal rather than figure out what's the problem and how to solve it. Do you structure the way that you order the questions in your fact finder? Do you structure that in a way to, like, if we're getting to know each other, I need to know basic information about you? Inevitably, basic information is far less invasive than, hey, what's in your Iraq? Right.

Yeah. The thing, though, pretty much every question I ask is. Could be considered awkward.

Okay.

How old are you?

Yeah, we're.

We're from the south, man. We don't. We don't.

We don't say that.

We don't talk about that kind of stuff.

You don't ask to come over and you don't ask our age or wait.

Unless you say, hey, you're talking on the phone and they say, they're a good cook. And you say, well, how heavy are you? I mean, if they're skinny, they can't be that good of a cut. That's fair.

But especially down here when everything's fried.

How do we get on these tangents?

That's you.

Probably true. Okay, okay. No, you're. Every question could be considered as awkward. Sure. But once again, when you go to the doctor, every stinking question they're asking is awkward. Sure. You know, like when you had that big lump checked out on your neck, you know, the one that was kind of oozing and everything.

No, that's terrible. You're gonna make somebody throw up. They're driving around listening to this ch.

Oh, this. I'm sorry. This is a bad day to do a podcast because I'm ornery. It's rainy outside. I just. We're only a week away from going to the Big island, and I am out of town for 21 days.

Yep.

So big trip? Yes, big trip, big relaxation. Well, we get to take our entire team. You know, once again, we talk about fact finders, things like that. One of the things I love doing with my team is we all get to go. What do we have? We have 24 people that are two babies. We have 22 people and two babies going with us. And I'm just so excited because I get to really hang out with the people I live life with and do life with. So, yeah, that's a whole side note. But anyway, back to the fact finder.

Yeah. No, and that's. That's kind of where my mind was going, was down. The idea of. Okay, inevitably, certain questions. Excuse me. Are going to be considered perhaps by the client as a little bit more invasive. Now, I do know.

Yeah, most clients. And I hear that, but most clients, clients. I had one guy that. Well, this is the beauty of using me, because literally, I can tell you real life circumstances. I met with a guy that actually had a ton of money. You could tell just by his tone, he had a ton of money. Yeah. And we didn't. I did an illustration for a million dollars.

Okay.

Well, I went out there. He has a lot more than a million dollars.

Okay.

And, you know, he did say, once again, because he wouldn't tell me, just he goes, I have a million dollars I want to use for an annuity. Well, how much do you have to say? I have plenty of money. And so I'm like, okay, I got. I still don't think I got one of the very few appointments I ever went on where I don't think I still got all the information. But I know he's probably worth at least 12 or 13 million. Wow. Okay. I have a gut feeling he's probably worth More than 20, if not more than that. This is one of the few guys that have ran into where he may be worth, you know, way above 25 million. I don't know. I mean, you couldn't tell by his house, but the way he carried himself, the way he was answering questions like, this is not a rookie right here. This guy is good old boys, you know, he knows what he's talking about. He's testing you. And so, you know, if you're going to be the guy that wrangles my cows, you know, you better know what you're doing. And that's. That's how I felt. I felt like I was being interviewed.

That's interesting.

But I was still able to get all the questions I needed answered Right. And he loves what we were talking about. Hopefully, you know, we're meeting again. Hopefully everything goes well. But the reality is, I didn't care what the awkward question was. Excuse me, I had a job.

Yeah.

And that's all it came down to. And if at some point he would have said, hey, I got a million dollars. I want to put a million into an annuity.

Doesn't matter.

No, no. I need to make sure. You have plenty of emergency funds, savings, liquid accounts, other accounts. I need to make sure I will walk away from a million dollar deal and not even think twice about it. If you don't want to share all your information with me, because that's my job.

Yeah.

How can I tell you? I'm trying to find a problem, find a solution, but I don't even know what the problem is. I don't even know if there is a problem. But if you tell me you have a million dollars to put an annuity. Excuse me, you have a million dollars put into annuity, but you're not going to tell me where your other funds are, then I'm not doing it right.

Yeah. Well, in that. Wow.

Yeah.

That's so good. And what that does in a client's mind is insane. Because your trust just went through the roof. Because they can see clear as day. You're not after a sale.

Oh, man. Yesterday, Yesterday, the lady goes, this was another big deal. I had a really good week with some big deals. She goes, why can't we just do this right now? And he said, oh, no, no. Want him to be able to take this book. I want him to read through it. I want him to come up with the questions. I mean, I had to do that right there because I knew he wasn't ready. She was ready to sign on the dotted line right there. But you could tell he looks at her, then looks back at me and he's like, if I would have went for the deal right there, even though I knew what I had was the best for their situation, I would have lost him. Sure. Because he would have known I was there for what, a sale? I wasn't. I was trying to find a solution to the problem. Making sure he was comfortable enough and understood how it works.

Right. Well, I think that a lot of agents don't realize that these people that have invested money with an advisor or with a broker or somebody that's doing that side of the business, the risk side of the business, those guys are often trained to tell their clients that this insurance guy, he can only sell you this thing.

So of course, by the way, it has a cap of 3%, right?

Yeah. Well, they'll throw it, sure. Sometimes they'll throw out those other things all the time. They're trained to tell their clients that this is what an agent is going to come in there and try and do. They're going to come in with their product, that the only thing they can sell is this safe, this safe money thing. Oh, right, yeah. And they're going to come in and they're going to try to sell it to you. So if that's their mindset and you go in and you're trying to get a sale, you're proving to your client that that is exactly what you're doing. But then when you go in and it's all about education, it's all about figuring out the problem, it's all about solving the problem in the fact finder helps communicate that for sure. And then you have those types of things where somebody says, yeah, let's do this, and the other you can tell is not quite ready, and you walk away.

I've had people where, you know, they've known of me for a while because if you Google Chad on annuities, Chad on safe money, Chad owned retirement, I'm all over the place, but I'll show up. And their statements are laid all out and they're just, I want to do it. And my first response is, you want to do what? Well, whatever you're going to tell me to do.

You said, what am I going to.

Tell you to do? And they go, well, you know, whatever I heard you talk about, like, okay, I still go through the full fact finder, I still go through the full explanation. I was just training agents right before this. I said, no matter if they're ready right that second, you still go through the full fact finder, you still go through the full product explanation, and you still make sure that's the best thing for them.

So good.

Yep.

That's so good.

So good. Well, I hope this helps you. Once again, guys, it's not about the sale. That's right, about helping a client with their retirement, giving them a safe and secure future. So I hope this helps you have a great day and happy selling.