How to go from No Lead Budget to Lead Surplus | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep 206

On this week's episode, we're going to be talking about seconds versus dollars.

Hey everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode. I am Chad Owen, the annuity sales coach. And right now we have Pinky in the brain.

So.

So Pinky, because this guy just gets sunburned all the time in the brain just because it's self explanatory. So this is gonna be he. This guy just can't. Oh, I don't need sunscreen. Yes, you do. Absolutely. You do now. Well, I usually don't either. But you know what? We can never call me Pinky and you the brain. That just won't work. So just supposed to be Pinky at that point. That's true. And no brains because we didn't use sunscreen. So, yep, we got a good topic. And I'm fired up because I've been dealing with TSP right now trying to get money move for two months and been on hold for 117 minutes. Well, an hour and 17 minutes to be told I need to be transferred to department. So I'm a little worked up. Yeah, I don't like it when people will not let go of someone else's money, which is not theirs. But that's a whole nother thing. So this might tie into seconds versus dollars very well.

It very well might. Seconds versus.

I'm gonna send a bill to TSP for the time I've been on hold and they're gonna pay me what I make per hour.

It's funny because I, I did an actual calculation just based on some generic, you know, 40 hour week. Somebody that writes 2 million a year average. Say by the time you factor in spias, mygas, older clients, shorter period. Yeah. You know, the average of 6% commission, they've got about a 58 per hour rate. Somebody that's writing 2 million a year doing 40 hours a week.

Do you figure out what I make per hour?

I didn't, I didn't do the math.

So I'm about to build tsp.

Yeah, we could do that here in a minute. We can send them a. But it's funny to me because very, very often I come across agents that they may even be writing good numbers and doing just fine, but the value that they place is actually more on the dollar than on their time. And obviously there's a threshold there. Right. There's a point where, you know, maybe you don't have the capital and you need to actually spend the time and do it yourself. But the other side of that is the more time you spend doing something that isn't directly leading to you writing more business. There's another cost at. At hand, and it's the cost of missed business.

Absolutely right.

I mean, we talk about this even.

For your vacations and stuff, which I try not calculate.

Yeah.

Let's just know if I average a million per week and I'm taking four weeks off.

That'S that.

But as I've said before, I would do that any day, all day long to spend time with my wife. I'm not being corny. I'm not being. I mean, legit. Just getting that time to enjoy with my wife or with my family, you know. You know what I figured out? We're probably not going to be able to do a family vacation this year.

Why is that?

Well, because we have, you know, you could get time off because all you have to do is ask me. But we have my youngest daughter in college. We have my oldest son in love. He is just, you know, handcuffs. And then, of course, yeah, it's just tough. So we'll. We'll figure it out.

But to your point.

Yeah.

About the vacation. Right. And this is sent back. This is, this is, this is the Chad conundrum here. But you can insert whatever it is. But for Chad, you. You take a week off, let's say. And let's say that vacation costs you 10, $15,000 to go and do, which that may be a little bit on the. On the low end. I'm not sure.

No, that's actually, that's. That's actually maybe a little high.

Okay.

Yeah. I mean, we stay in medium hotels, you know, and I would say we're pretty good at what we spend.

But if you're riding a million a.

Week, that $10,000 vacation, $5,000.

Yeah. So you can, you can do the math and realize real quickly that for somebody at a production level like Chad, the biggest cost is not the cost of the vacation, it's the cost of the missed business. Now, you can insert anything into that. You could put in branding, you know, somebody that's like, well, I don't want to pay to have a logo done. I'm just gonna figure out how to do it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, what's the missed. What's the missed business? What's the time there?

See, for me, for the vacation, if I don't do that, I'll crash and burn pretty quick. I mean, you saw that in 2020, you know, I went six weeks, six months off or something without a vacation, and everything felt.

Yeah. When, When Covid Hit. You were just going, going, going, going all year long, really. And I mean the, the last, the last quarter for you in 2020, which is typically your best quarter of the year, it was the worst quarter you've had in quite a while, actually. Like any quarter.

Yeah. So, I mean, you could look at that every way. You know, you don't take time off to relax. Number one, you don't get to enjoy why you do what you do with the ones you love most. But the other thing is physically you can't handle it. I mean, it gets pretty tough. But I also look at the branding and the website as well because they say, well, I don't want to spend five grand on a website. Do you know how many people look at your website before they'll ever meet with you? Like even if you have a scheduled appointment, I can't even tell you the number of times I've heard someone. Yeah. I've already looked at all your stuff.

Right.

I already went to your website, I already checked you out on bbb. I already looked at your National Ethics Association. I. They've done that.

Yeah.

So you could say, I don't want to spend five grand. Well, the thing that's crazy about this, literally, that takes $80,000 annuity approximately to pay for that 80, $90,000 annuity or why wouldn't you? Right.

I saw three third party studies that showed that over. All three of these third party studies indicated that over 70% of consumers will visit a company's website or business's website before they ever even present themselves in the physical person to that business, before they even step through a door. So if you're trying to book appointments out there with people that are looking you up and trying to figure you out, I mean, that's, that's just a tough thing.

Yeah. Did you hit the timer? I did. With you there, you know, with your mouth. We're just going to keep going.

We just may have an hour long podcast.

Exactly. We like break it into four sections. Hey, that might not be a bad idea. And Caleb continued again. Yeah. So, you know, and it's the cost of not doing leads. I just talked to a well producing agent, a well producing agent and I said, oh, so how are your leads going? He goes, oh, I shut them off. I'm like, what? Well, you know, I have a, I have a reserve of leads going on and I just shut them off. And I'm like, why would you do that? Because you just proved to the lead company that you're seasonal.

Yeah.

And people ask Often, I mean, there's agents all throughout the United States that you know, will turn their leads off and on and it does nothing for the lead company because they don't show you're consistent, number one. Number two, I have agents even that listening to this podcast consistently, they're incredibly frustrated because they can't get any leads in Austin and San Antonio. But I've spent 16 years between here in Colorado of actually more like 15 years, because I think 15 years now is about when I started advertising. I still do mortgage protection and life insurance, but for sure, 14 years of solid annuity lead marketing.

Yeah.

And they know I never shut them off. You've been buying and so why would they go to a brand new person or a person who's been doing it for a few years that they don't know and go, I wonder if they're going to be consistent.

Not to mention, should you hit a season where you need more lead flow and you call the lead company up and you're like, guys, we've got to figure this out. I need more leads. Are they going to turn down and say, sorry, man, there's nothing we can do to somebody that's been a loyal customer for 14 years straight? Probably not. They're probably going to figure out a way, okay, we need to try and get an extra 2, 3 leads a week if we can.

Yeah.

And that's a lot for the least.

I think one organization I've been with for a year, and that's because they just started probably another one for two years. But then the other ones it's been since the beginning. And they just know that Chad will not turn off his lead. So the cost of not buying a $350 lead is far greater by what you could potentially get in business versus, I mean, I was posting how I was at. I think it was at 22 million for the year. This was a couple months ago. And some guy goes, wow, your leads are really expensive. I'm like, I'm paying $350 for a lead and I have 22 million on for the year.

Right. Your cost of new acquisition, like client acquisition is a little over a thousand dollars by the time you factor in.

Well, you don't have to tell me that that sounds like a lot, but.

But if your average case size is $440,000, it's like the ROI is like you're well into like 25x ROI or something on this.

It's, it's kind of that you 10x ers everybody's advertising 10x. I do 25x. Come on.

But it's good and it's true. It's like, what's the alternative to that? Right? If you're writing business on the leads, it's again, not the cost of the lead at 350 bucks. It's the cost of, okay, now that's a half a million dollar deal. I'm not have. That's a million dollar deal.

I'm not going to have the cost of not spending money on good leads. You have the cost of not doing marketing and branding. By the way, we are incredible at marketing branding. And let me rephrase that completely. My team is incredible at marketing and branding. I do not do logos. I do not do websites. I wouldn't even know where to start. I could sketch one, but that's about it. But it's incredible what they do. It's. As a matter of fact, we had a logo done with one of my companies and it turns out that color they used. Because I remember looking at the color and I'm going, I don't know. Well, trust me, this is the best color. It turned out that was the number one marketing cup color for the year. Because 2022, I saw all these websites having this same color and I'm like, what is going on? They had that way before 2021 was even around. They were way ahead of the game. So we have an incredible marketing company. Well, it's one we own, but they partner with it. And you know what? I'm gonna. God, they're gonna hate me for this. I'm gonna do it anyway. If you call in and mention podcast. Okay, podcast. That's all you have to do. Or the annuity sales coach. I'll take that 7,500 and I'll knock it down to 5,000 for a complete branding package.

I mean, you can.

I own the company just because other people generous. That is very generous. But that's how important. I mean, who's going to knock off. Remember, if you know what it takes to get my team to build an entire website and branding that is super cheap. I just had someone tell us that they charge $15,000 to do a website, a logo and an intro video, I'm like, we charge half that. And now I'm telling you. And we do.

Yeah, I know the team. I've seen their stuff.

It's.

It's really good.

So 5,000. Mention the annuity sales coach when you talk to actually reach out to Caleb and you'll know, you'll hold me accountable for that. Because I am notorious for this. Oh, they said you could get 2,500 off. I'm like, oh, when did I talk about that? Oh, no. You really said that? Yeah. Oh, okay. So he knows I said that, but it's that important to me. And if you're not part of our organization, why do I care what your logo looks like?

Yeah, it's true.

And when you know what I make in annuities, why would I do something that's going to take my team hours and hours and hours and hours for five grand? You know, that's not for my benefit. That's to make our industry look better and better. Because we have to. We do.

It's. It's. I mean, that's where the Leave behind kit came from.

It is? Yes.

I mean, you were up against a big brokerage firm, and they had all these nice things, and you're sitting there.

With your black clip art. Yeah, whatever. And black folder with my printed clip art logo. And I'm going, man, how did I even write 15 million? Because at that year, I wrote probably 1215 million, and I couldn't believe it. But now you do Chado and annuities. Chad own safe money. Chad own retirement. You can see my stuff is really good. And remember, this is not me taking credit for it. This is the quality of our creative team.

Yeah. Is there. Is there a threshold that you feel like.

Where there would be certain things that would be worth an agent doing in their own time? Like if. Is there, like a capital there?

I mean, wait, I do need to say something. Sorry. That offer will only be valid until we get stacked up. So when we. I'm not going to have my team go, okay, we got 10 marketing plans. We're going in our website. I just have to clarify that because I could easily see them getting buried really, really quick. Yeah, I mean, we. We have a lot. I mean, I have 22,000 people, I think, on LinkedIn, 22, 23, something like that. And we have thousands and thousands that listen to our podcast. So I do have to specify, there's your little disclaimer. So if you want to do that, call in right away and get that taken care of. Reach out to Caleb. Get that taken care of. Okay, back to your question.

Yeah. So the question is, is there a threshold there where it would make sense for an agent to figure out how to do something on their own in their own time, rather than spending the money on it? Or even. Even from a capital perspective, in an investment perspective, like, it just makes sense to have it done professionally. From the jump I'm thinking about, most businesses started without capital.

Yeah. But the thing is, I always will refer back to the expert.

Yeah.

I mean, even when I was just getting started, I. I talked to people that were experts in the industry and there has never been a time in my life where I could have called myself a logo and website expert. So I don't think so.

You know, it's funny, I'm thinking just logically about just the way I'm wired. Right. I'm pretty personable guy, extroverted. I don't have problem striking up conversation with new people.

Sometimes I work.

But anyway, if I were an agent that had limited capital, I personally would be more inclined to spend that on making my company, my, my brand look the right way than even on leads. And I would figure out a free way to go and do market. I would know, I would door knock or something if I didn't have the capital to buy leads.

Well, because you'll definitely get more people actually using you if you have lower quality leads but a higher presence than you would a higher presence and high or lower presence and a higher quality lead. And so. Wow, that was pretty darn quick. Yeah. Well, that probably means our timer's up there, but let's realize. Let's cover a couple more things, so. Yeah, yeah.

But that was, that was a big piece. There was like, what, what are the things? And, and realistically that. That's just where I sit. I would rather have a professional team do my brand development, my creative works and me go and do something that I, I'm good at, just talking with people and, and not have marketing expense. But there's, I mean, you can literally apply this same concept to everything. Yeah. And I mean, it's the idea of hiring a appointment setter for you. You're like, I'm not gonna have somebody calling my leads because it's not the 50 extra dollars or $100 extra to book an appointment or per lead. It's the cost of if they miss one. That would have been a deal if.

That you and the old Chad would have said they don't like making calls. But the new and improved Chad say I like making calls. So it's a mental shift. I'm trying to get the mental shift because if you don't come in with the right attitude, you're not going to have the right. And so I'm very grateful that I get to make calls because that means I have leads. And so I need to look at that differently. And be very thankful for the opportunity that I have and not have that junk attitude going into that. And so I just. When I went on vacation just recently, I was thinking about that and, well, there you go. If I wasn't on vacation, there's generally times I don't think about stuff like that because my brain isn't free enough. Right. But I remember just sitting there going, man, I could be pretty ungrateful at times. Say how I hate making calls. No, you know what? I'm getting to the point. Like, even today, even though I've been dealing with TSP and on hold forever, I still am actually looking forward to making calls. And when I came in this morning with that mindset, I called, you know, I call from 9 to 10:30. I picked up six appointments.

And those calls, amazing what the month. And I can't help but think that when you have.

You're not carrying that weight of I don't want to do this. It shifts the inflection, the tone, the way you sound on the phone increases the excitement level. Naturally, people are drawn to an excitement. It makes sense to me that you're. It would only benefit the appointment rate there.

Well, I think that wraps it up. And once again, you got to be careful how much money you won't spend on something that will in the long run and even short run, cost you an enormous amount. So I hope this helps you. You have a great day and of course, happy selling.