How To Build an Appointment Process | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 147

Hey everyone. Welcome back to this week's podcast. I am Chad Owen and this is my boy Wonder. I guess everybody likes that. Caleb. Boy Wonder.

Boy Wonder.

Is it wonder Boy? Boy Wonder. I don't know. It's a wonder. It's a wonder. You're a boy.

Okay, anyway, boy, that got off to an interesting start. This is what happens when you're able. Now we do a lot of pre recording with podcasts, which is really nice, but most of you don't know. You can tell by my beautiful tan that I've been gone for three weeks in Hawaii. And you know, it was, it was great. I mean we took our entire team there. We did a family trip slash business trip and we went to a really great conference and then I spent another, oh, four or five days after the conference on the Big island. And then my wife and I went to Oahu for a week and just visited her brother and we got to see Pearl Harbor. Really amazing. If you guys have not been to Oahu to see Pearl harbor, it is incredible. It's very surreal. I mean, you're over the Missouri Memorial and you realize there's 900 plus souls that are still down there. And then the number of people that passed away during that horrific battle attack. Not battle attack. And thank God that we, we won, of course, America, we're awesome. So. But it was really overcoming some incredible odds and stories. I mean the reality is, and I am a die hard, veteran loving person, there's no doubt about it. America would not be America without our veterans. That's what it comes down to. And I have the utmost respect. So I wanted to take a moment just to thank any veterans we have. Whether you're a veteran or you have family members or the veterans or you have kids that are in the military, I am over the top grateful for all you've done.

So true.

So let's get back into how do we make y' all money?

Yes, we're going to talk today. Kind of a 30,000 foot view. How to build an appointment process.

I prefer 40,000. Less turbulence, less air, less resistance.

Less oxygen too up there.

Hey, I have my own little bubble. So anyway, go in.

Here is where those bubbles at. Y' all don't Watch us on YouTube. You need to see it because there's some funny things we do on camera that you can't here over the podcast.

Just look how he looks. That's going to make you laugh alone. I'm telling you, the boy Wonder hair curl thing, you don't have your one little quail thing hanging down.

I don't. Not today. It's all stage sleep.

Okay. Let's actually do something that's effective and. And eventful here.

So 30,000 foot view. How to build an appointment process. Obviously, if you want to see Chad's exact appointment process, reach out to us or go to rragentsacademy.com you can find it there. But 30,000 Foot View, we're talking appointment process. First. They need to map out Chad is where in the world are they going to meet with people?

Yeah. You know what? That is an interesting thing, because there are people that still meet in other people's homes. I do. I'm definitely a person who loves to meet people in their own territory, in their own home, make them feel comfortable. But we have a lot of agents that actually have them come to their office, which is fine. We even have some people that will meet at a restaurant. I don't. Because I literally say, need to make sure your information is protected. So because of client confidentiality, I don't meet in restaurants or, you know, any public location. Even if it's their office at work, it has to be an enclosed area where nobody else can hear their information.

Some people get rooms at libraries, too. Is that right?

Pre Covid.

Yeah. Well, that's fair.

Yeah. Because right now you can't do that in libraries. Yeah, of course. In the great state of Texas. So.

Florida.

Yeah, Florida. Yep. Florida. Another great state.

Yeah. But that's important. I mean, really. And this is what you found over the years is being able just to see somebody in person. I mean, there's a lot. There's been a big shift. A lot of people trying to do things virtually. I've even been on the phone with agents talking to me about trying to do annuity sales over the phone. And I'm just, you know, it's not that I ever want to tell somebody that they can't do something because I think it's challenging.

Don't.

Yeah, don't do it.

I mean, I do hear some annuity agents that are trying to switch their practice over to virtual. Don't do it.

It's gonna make it a lot. A lot more challenge.

I'm not saying you can't. Like today I just talked to you about this. Today I had four people that reached out to me from other states. Three of them were other clients I've already had. One was a referral that lives in Georgia. So I mean that obviously I'm doing everything virtual now. The one I literally just had to explain to him over the phone, how they worked, he's okay, so what do I have to do to make sure I can get signed up? So before obviously I told him, I said, hey, I need to make up to date on my Georgia license and then I'll call you back and we can fill that out. Because guys do not talk about annuities in another state that you're not licensed in. Yeah, that is a big deal. You need to be licensed before you can ever solicit business in another state. Now for this client, I was just answering questions, but once they said, what do we need to do to get this started? I said, I need to make sure my license is active. So do not solicit or go after annuity business unless you are licensed to that state.

Well, I got to hear you have that phone call. And one of the things I noticed on that phone call is if you were to listen to that, you would not have thought that that was one of very few over the phone appointments or you know, it's not a sale yet. Like, like you mentioned working online, making sure everything's good there in Georgia. But for lack of better terms over the over the phone type of process there because the way it sounded was like that's what you've always done.

That's a good point. It doesn't matter if I'm face to face or doing a virtual appointment. My appointment process is exactly the same. I go over the fact finder. Now this gentleman I didn't have to go over a full fact finder with because he just basically told me right off the bat how much he has an iras, how much he has a non qualified just went into it what his goal is. He's 46 years old, so we're not doing any sort of income rider. So it's a matter of. That was very easy to find that product. Very quick, why I'm 48 years old, I can't get in the income riders. I knew exactly what I was going to put him in. So that's when he goes, well, what do I need to do to get signed up? So literally a 20 minute conversation turned into a sale. Right. And now obviously number one objective for me was does this work for him? Does this make sense every time? Does this meet his ultimate goal? And absolutely it did.

Yeah, that's perfect. But key, key thing there obviously being what's best for him simultaneously. It wasn't like you skipped the beat. It was, I mean it was, it was perfect. It sounded as if Chad was doing phone sales with These things all the time. There was not a moment there where it was like, well, he doesn't really seem to know what he's doing over the phone. So all that to say, if you're going to try and do virtual or you're going to try and do stuff over the phone, you got to make it sound like that's what you're actually doing. Don't make a transition. And then. And then.

Good point.

Sounds.

Now, I will tell you from a lot of experience, obviously if you try and do a phone sale or virtual sale, you need to be even more polished and more you can do. But when you're in an appointment, you can do a pause. When you're face to face and they're watching your body language, maybe thinking. But if you do a pause and they can't see your body language, they may go, why is there dead space? I don't get it. If you ever talk to radio show host or radio shows or rodeo program stations, the number one worst thing that can happen to a radio show is dead air. They'll say, don't ever have dead air on a radio program or radio station because literally seconds people will tune off. If you have dead air interest. The brain does the same thing. You have dead air. The brains going, they don't know what they're talking about. Why are they hesitating? Did they not. What, did they lose communication? Am I not important to them? Your little brain is just going a billion miles an hour. And all this is subconsciously. I mean, they may have a tangible thought of what happened there, but their subconscious going, this person's not smooth. They don't know what they're talking about. I mean, hear how I talk in podcasts. You hear me on the phones. I don't do. But well. And I have people all the time that tell me, oh, I don't say that. You used to say that.

I do.

I don't say. I don't say, okay, record the stinking call. Okay. And then what did you do? I say that a lot. So it happens to the best of the best. And they don't recognize it until somebody points them out on that. And it's kind of interesting because we were talking about business development before this. We can actually help agents with this, right? We can help agents figure out, why am I making so many calls, but I'm not getting appointments, right? Why am I getting so many appointments but people aren't showing up? Why do I get them to show up? But they don't seem interested in what I'm talking about why is it when I explain things, I get through the appointment, but then they don't want to buy. All this is part of the process and you're missing something. For example, if I have someone that's getting a lot of leads but not have a lot of appointments, that generally means your phone process needs a lot of help. Right. But if they're getting a lot of appointments and they're not getting a lot of sales, they don't have confidence in you. They don't believe that you know what you're talking about. You're fumbled during the process. So that's where we actually get to help with that whole process. Right.

Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because that's exactly right. And the way that you just approach that kind of your idea of, well, if they get a lot of leads but not a lot of appointments, something's off in the phone process. If they get a lot of appointments, not a lot of deal, something's off in the appointment process. Those are the two big parts of your process, being on the phone and the appointment. And then there are other sub things within those that will make or break a lot of times. But that said, yeah, those are the three big numbers. When we have a business strategy session, which is absolutely free to you, you can go to theannuitysalescoach.com you can go to Free Resources, and it's the first one at the top of the page, the business strategy session. Personally get on the phone with these agents, I'm talking with them. And that's one of the things that we looked at. I mean, it's 30 minute call, so we cover a ton of stuff. All of it's based on your process specifically, kind of going over that and how they can take bits and pieces of that, implement that into what they're doing. But those are three key questions. If you were to get 10 leads per month, how many of those would you book into appointments?

2.

Okay, we can work on the phones. 7. Okay. Your phone process is probably pretty good. Okay, you take those two, but are you closing them? Then you get into the club. Okay. What would you expect to close on those? Seven? You know, maybe one. Okay, well, now the appointment process is what we're going to focus on. Walk me through what that looks like. So we're using these to assess what in the world can be improved very quickly. And then how are we going to actually provide you feedback to improve those very quickly? Well, the how is. We know your process like the back of Our hand. Some. I joke. I know it better than the back of my hand.

Of course. Yeah. I mean, having to stay with me the whole time, literally all the time. I mean, this has been a long time you've had to do that. I almost feel sorry for you.

Almost.

Not quite. But when you stop, when you're waking up in the middle of the night, my daughter's going, you say, no, stop buying annuities. Stop buying annuities. You're selling it wrong. You know, he's hearing my voice way too much. But, you know, when it comes down to it, unfortunately, I have to watch quite a few home improvement shows with my wife, which I love to, but, oh, my gosh, they just dramatize everything. But one of the things I see, when they're remodeling, they have this huge thing, they go, well, we can knock this wall out, but we can't remove this right here. That's a supporting beam. And often when we're in the middle of a conversation, we accidentally remove that support supporting beam and the entire house caves in. So we have to be careful when. When they're middle of that appointment, you realize what you're saying and how you're saying it, and you don't pull that supporting beam. And really, that supportive beam is generally things like safety, security, making sure they don't outlive their income, making sure you're an expert in what you're doing, making sure that you have a good flow with your product. That's what supports the entire house. Without that supporting beam, the entire thing will cave in. So that's what we get to walk you through in the whole business process. And this is the first time that I know of where we've literally told agents on our podcast, hey, we will give you this free consultation. And so, I mean, we've had the academy for four years now, over four years now, and this is the first time we've ever done that. Why now more than ever? With the volatility of the market, the uncertainty of anything. I just read an interesting article today, and I'm going to try and quote this off the top of my head. I think there were about 4,000.

Excuse me, 4,000 centurions. So people lived over 100 years old, a century and century centurion, not a Roman soldier. So whatever the people over 100 years old, it was something like 4,000 some then it was expected to be some around around 25 million in 2025 and some crazy number above that in 2100. I mean, people are getting Older, a lot longer. And we will have this article actually available. If you're part of the academy, we will have this article available. I just need to finish reading through it to make sure there's not some little dig about annuities in there, you know, because every once in a while they have this, you don't want to outlive your income. You don't want to outlive your income. And then this is why you buy dividend stocks. I'm going, ok. That's not what this is about.

Right.

People are living a lot longer. There's a lot more people getting older. So 100 years old. I tell this to my clients all the time. When I first started in this business, having clients that were in the 80s were very, very rare.

Interesting.

Now it's very normal to have clients talking to me in their 90s. It's very normal. So what does that mean? Ten years from now, I'm probably gonna have a lot of clients talking to me in their hundreds. Why? That's crazy. I mean, people are living a long time. So your process and your system has to be flawless. And I'm not kidding. I mean, I know people say, well, Chad, you, you make mistakes. Absolutely, I do. But my presentation, my process is methodical and robotic and. I don't know. I mean. Yeah. Is there times I miss something? Yes, but I can't think of the last time I did, you know, because it's the same thing every time. Right. I don't need to think about how to jump in my truck and turn in my car. Now if you have a, you know, a Chevy, you have to go and you have to wiggle the little battery cable and then you have to hit it with a hammer and then that's. Then, you know, maybe. And then you got to get behind and have somebody run and push it, you know, faster than it's ever gone. So maybe five miles an hour and then you can jump start it.

Well, at least with the hammer it doesn't fall apart.

Have you seen your Chevy? Have you seen. Unless you look at yours. Let's look at mine. Okay. Yours isn't a lot more pieces I love barely hanging on. But the process is methodical. It's the same thing every single time. So this is why you got to get into that routine.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to encourage you to go to theannuitysalescoach.com go to free resources, obviously look at the business strategy session, but download this document. We have a free document in that on that website where you can literally it's a six step process. How to build an appointment process. It's derived from steps that you use in there and it's going to share with you the different things that you need to be paying attention to in your appointment. So definitely go download that, look at that, use that. There's a slew of other documents as well.

But I think, yeah, yeah, I want to encourage people. I have a lot of people that are in my inner circle. These are people that pay me $1500 a month personally coach them. Now let's think about that. 18,000 a year, that's one $250,000 annuity. You're more than paying for that. So if I can't help you sell 250,000, something seriously went wrong. Right, but the point of that is they even go through the system and the process and when I'm talking to them, these guys a lot of times started off writing 2, 3, 400,000 a year and now I have people that are getting their first million dollar deals. They're $700,000 months. I mean it's very consistent, common. But when certain stage, when I'm coaching someone who's now maybe at the 5 or 6 million dollar mark, it's rarely big mistakes making. It's usually really tiny ones that add up to a lot. So that's what I get to help you through. So if you want to be part of the inner circle, let me know. We had. Do we have two or three? Yeah, three spots left. Two spots left. So I'm sorry, I don't know all those numbers. I just know who I need to call every week. So I just go on my phone, I look who's there and I make the calls. Good. So I hope this helps you guys once again take advantage of this free business. What is it? Business strategy session. Oh yeah, okay. It's bss.

Bss.

Bss. Bss. Okay, I remember I have an acronym for. Another one is a bssm. That's why it sounded so familiar. School. It's a ministry school. So I'm like bss, what is that? But yeah, basically goes through the whole process with you. I mean Caleb out of anybody in this entire office. Caleb and Josh are probably my two most. Let's say they know my business inside and out and sometimes they write something. I'm like that looks like I wrote that. I didn't write it, they did. So it's. They know how I do things and the way I do it. So don't miss this opportunity. This is a banner Year I'm on record pace now. I missed a lot May because I was gone for three weeks, technically three and a half, but I was gone. And so obviously last year was the time I happen to have a nine million dollar month. But I had a horrible last half of last year. So six months when I say horrible, I still did 10 million. I think maybe more. But this, that I have a feeling the last half of this year is gonna blow away the first half of my last year. That's good because I think I'm at 7 or 8 million this year.

Well, I can find out for sure.

He tracks everything well.

And I would say just on that, Chad, tell them why they should be tracking theirs.

Well, you need to know, you need to count your success. I mean, I know most people don't do this, but I'm particular on my weight. I want to make sure I stay pretty healthy. Now I still have about 15 pounds to lose, but I actually weigh myself every day. Why? I want to. First of all, I want to say, did I eat too much sodium in the day before? But I want to make sure I'm staying on track. I don't get off the course because I don't want to not be on the scale for a month. And then I get on later. I'm like, Whoa, I gained 10 pounds. I don't want to do that.

Right.

So I'm. What am I at right now?

So you have sold $9,020,000 this year with an average case size of $375,000. 9 million.

See, I'm happy with that because I think, like I said, how many weeks.

Have you taken off?

It's five weeks.

I think you just had three and then you had a few before that.

Yeah, something like that. So maybe six weeks. But you know, I have to do it because I run multiple other companies so I stay very, very busy. But once again, don't miss this opportunity to have them go over your process with you. And it's free. And once again, if you decide to go with this, great. If you don't, you still got the free session. So I hope this helps you guys. You have a great day. And of course, happy selling.