How To Handle Objections Before They Arise | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 137

Hello, everyone. Welcome to this week's podcast. I am Chad Owen. As usual, the same old boring, fun, unpredictable guy. That was unpredictable. That was unpredictable. So, Caleb, what are we talking about today?

We're going to talk about overcoming objections before they arise. Now, I know that you get objections just like everybody else. In fact, one of the things that.

Agent sets really good topics.

It is a great topic.

It is a good topic.

But one of the things that I've found that agents love most from you is your objection handling. The problem with that is that it's 100% in response to an objection that already came up. Correct. What if you could overcome objections before they came up?

Now what happens when I do?

That's the key. We're gonna teach them how to do that.

That's a good point.

So, I mean, right off the bat you can think through that and think, okay, well then if you're handling objections before they come up, then the whole essence is that I'm literally just answering questions or overcoming those before they mention them.

Yeah.

So what do you do to actually get to that point?

Like, how do you first of all be very thorough on your fact finder? You have to do that. And this is from the mini fact finder on the phone call to the in appointment fact finder. You have to be very thorough on that. Do not skip steps.

Right. And real quick, what he's talking about, those are two documents in Retirement Realized Agents Academy.

So they're actually part of our academy. Retirement Realized Agents Academy are part of our FMO Retirement Realized financial. You have access to all of those.

Totally.

But what that is is when I'm finding out what their situation is. And fact finders, it's such an overused word. There's everybody thinks they have a fact finder. And I look and I'm going, do you have a fact finder with a purpose? Or you're just purely information gathering? You know, it's like, I'll give you a freebie. And you've probably heard me say this on podcast before, but they'll say, well, on a risk tolerance scale 1 to 10, you're willing to risk all your money at 10 and 1, you're not willing to risk any of it. Where would you fall in that? Seven? I was like, so I say something simple. Are you willing to lose all of your money, some of your money and none of your money?

So good, somebody's gonna take that and that's gonna revolutionize.

I mean, but there's something you have to say after that that helps. That be purposeful, right? And so you know what, Sign up, we'll do. No, I'll give it to you. But the reality, when you ask that type of question, you say, well, I don't want to lose any of my money. That's funny. You just told me of IRAs that have stocks, bonds and mutual funds. You're all at risk. But you flat out told me you don't want to lose any of your money, right? So, see that question, I have a whole bunch of those on the fact finder. It's very specific. This is the question I'm asking, which is a no duh question. They're always like, well, duh, I don't want to lose any of my money. Well, that's funny, because you have everything at risk and you said you don't lose any of your money. So it sounds like we need to find a product that doesn't have any risk due to market volatility, right? Or your income can't go away. So you do a fact finder, but you do a fact finder with purpose. And that's all about finding the solution to the problem. It's all that whole thing. You guys know, you've heard it. If you've been in sales for a while, you know the difference between features and benefits. The features, what the product does. The benefit is what it does for them, right? So that's the biggest difference. And everybody cares about what it does for them for their retirement. The features mean nothing if it does not benefit them. So when we're talking about the fact finder and overcoming objections, if you get these questions asked, if you say right there, when you're doing the fact finder, you say, so obviously, if you don't want to lose any money, we got to get your product that doesn't lose money when the market goes down. Did I overcome a potential objection? Can this money, can this money be lost? Can you go backwards due to market volatility? I just told you right there, right? It can't, right? So I've already addressed one potential objection. Objection. But there's so many that we can do that with. The other thing with objections is often objections happen because you didn't answer the question that they originally asked you. So they're more confused. So therefore they come up with more questions. So if you would just address the initial concern, you probably wouldn't have a whole lot of other questions. There's times I go through a full fact finder with a full presentation. I explain how the products work, what's it does. And because I've done it for so many years, I didn't have somebody, you know, consistently training on this. I mean, I've had some great mentors over the years, but a lot of this, I've had to come through trial and error. And if I do it thoroughly, there's times I go, do you have any questions? And they'll go, no, this sounds great. This is exactly what I've been looking for. And I'm almost like, there's got to be an objection. There's got to be something you're concerned about. There's gotta be something you want to ask me. Well, yeah, I do actually want to ask you. So what do I need to do to get started? That happened last Thursday. I'm sitting there fully expecting objections, and he looks at his wife and he goes, so, what do you think we should we do it? And she's like, yeah, I should. And I'm sitting there going, okay. So. And then, of course, I said, just to reassure you, nothing is solidified till the money's transferred and we're past our free look period. So I want you to fully understand you have plenty of time for questions. Now, did I just mention a return policy when they said that they solidified the deal they wanted? Yes, because I still want them not having buyer's remorse. I want them to understand, still, here's the material I'm leaving with you. Read through the book, read through the brochures, and then when we meet again, I want to go over questions. So when I'm delivering this policy, see, or if it's a day from now, or if it's three weeks from now, call me if you have any questions or concerns. But that actually happens quite a bit. And I've had agents run appointments with me, and they go, that was super easy. And I've said this so many times. You know what? I can watch Olympics and I can see figure skaters out there. Not that I watch figure skating because I want to. It's because my wife likes watching figure skating. But I'm sitting there watching them do these jumps and these skating around, and they. It's blows me away. It looks so easy to them.

It's nice.

I get up there, I've got a black eye and a bloody lip because I slipped the first time I stepped onto the ice. Not from personal experience. You know, I saw it happen with a friend. But, you know, it's funny, because. Why did it. Why? It wasn't that simple for me, because I'm not out there on the ice rink, four to five hours a day, if not more.

Right.

I'm not doing the conditioning, the training. Oh, man, if you ever saw me trying to speed skate fast, I'd be huffing and puffing right now. So I don't have the endurance. But to me, it looks simple. To them, it is simple because of how much they've done it. But it doesn't mean they don't continually continue to train and get coaching. Absolutely. And so when you answer the client's objection, often you'll get to the end, or. Excuse me, you don't answer the objective. You give enough information to where they don't have objections. That probably happens once every two weeks where I get to the end of the presentation, like, hey, this is exactly what I want to do.

Yeah.

And here's the thing. Stop selling. You know, it's. You fight that urge. Well, I got to say this. I got to say that, no, you're not selling anything. You find a solution to the problem and they decide if it's good for them. So that's what happens. But you could easily not explain the product, not do a complete fact finder, not answer the questions. And all of a sudden you wonder why they have 15 objections.

Right.

Because you never addressed it.

Yeah. Well. And that's. My goodness. From talking with agents, I can't tell you how many hours I've spent on the phone.

Yeah. Anyways, from talking with agents for hours and hours and hours, one of the things that I see a lot is that whole idea right there. They're talking about it and they're like, I'm dealing with all this stuff. Why? Well, you're not. You're not actually giving them pertinent information about how it works. Most objections are merely questions.

Yep.

We categorize them as objections as if they're saying they don't want to do something. But most of the time it's just.

They're unclear if occasion.

Exactly.

Yeah. That is. That's. Most objections happen because they're just. And it's like you said, it's not objection. They just don't understand what you're talking about.

Right.

So take the time. I mean, in our academy and even in our fmo, we are very methodical in the system process. And if you follow, I mean, we have videos that go from the phone calls. We have videos that go through the fact finder. I mean, I mean, so many different things. The sales process, we go through the whole thing. Why? Because. And then I have agents. Well, I'm done. No you're not go back through it again. Right.

It's like watching a movie. You notice things different a second time that you didn't catch the first time.

I remember watching Napoleon Dynamite first time and then I watched it. I don't know why I never get the time back, but I'm like, there's a tiger skin on the wall in that double wide.

That's really weird. But yeah, you do. By nature, by our characteristics as humans, we pick up more. The more we see it, the more repetitive.

Absolutely.

You know, I don't have to stop and think about what my wife likes, you know. Well, you know the love language books. You know, there's five love languages. My wife has all five, plus she's created some of her own. So I know that it's not just physical touch outwards of affirmation. What is it? Quality time. It's all of them. So I just know I don't even have to think about it.

There you go. You just do it.

Just do it.

Well, and it's funny you say that because that's actually one of the things I wanted to go into Next is, okay, how do you get to a point where you've actually built into your presentation overcoming those objections? Obviously you're going through, you know, your materials, you're using all of those things, you're covering different things. But the key is observing your appointments.

That you do have, observing your client.

That's the key.

Yeah.

What are they saying?

What are they asking? When I'm trying something new, I'm often looking at what is their body language. So when I'm trying a new conditions in the market, because that happens all the time, I don't care when is it. There's always different things that are happening in the market. But when I'm looking at the client, when I say something new, so how do you make an unrealized gain, a realized gain? And they go, hmm, that means what I said worked. They were thinking about, do you remember what happened from 2000-2003-2003-2007 to 2009. Do you remember how that made you feel? Now, once again, this is not a fear standpoint. This is think about what we're in again. Remember, are we in a high market or a low market? I mean, here's the reality, and I think I said this a few podcasts ago. Of course the market looks good right now because we had what hundred thousand businesses disappear in 2020? Which if people are buying from these small businesses, where do they buy now? The big Companies. Who's publicly traded? The big companies. So what happens when the market finally starts to catch up with those 500,000 to 3 million people that lost their jobs? And I'm probably being conservative, I have no idea. But there's people that will not be able to afford it. I mean, do you talk to anybody who owns a whole bunch of rental properties right now, especially in certain areas of the country, they're now having to think about declaring bankruptcy because the properties they are leasing out that they own now, people aren't paying rents because of their life circumstances. And now the person who owns a property can't make their mortgage payments. So, I mean, there's a lot of junk. There's people, there's administration. This administration is simply starting to cut back on the oil pipeline. They're going to raise corporate tax. And once again, this is not a Democrat, Republican type situation. This is facts.

Right.

Historically, the market hates it when a Democrat in controls the the House, Senate and Presidency, just like the market hates it when a Republican controls the House, the Senate and the President. Sure. They don't like it generally when one party controls all three branches or not all three branches, they control all three offices. So, you know, we're seeing things right now. What's causing this market to go up right now? And so we've got to answer the objection there as well. Do you think the market's going to go up or go down? Here's the answer to that. I don't know. Yeah, Jinx, I know.

Nobody knows.

Yeah, we don't know. And so if I don't know and I'm an ex and I tell clients this, if I don't know, and I'm an expert in the industry and I've been doing this for 17 years. And even if you're brand new and you've only been doing this for six months, Right. You study the market. While you can tell there's a lot of volatility in the market, why did it go up so much even during the Trump presidency? I don't know. I really don't. Because even some of the things that happened there, we don't know how it happened and why it happened.

Right.

I mean, we're at 28 trillion in debt. We just passed another 1.9 trillion in bailout money. And there's guaranteed to be more than that.

Right.

What's gonna happen? I don't know. But I do know that historically our products have protected people's money in the upside and the downside.

Absolutely.

So that's Objection of why am I going to outlive my income? Well, what happens if I lose money when the market falls? We're handling an objection because we're providing a product that doesn't do that. Right.

Well, and that's the thing, is clients will tell you what part of your appointment process needs to be fixed, what part of your appointment process needs to be fixed. If they're asking you all these different types of questions and you're noticing. This client asked me that. That client asked me that. That client asked me that. You're seeing commonalities there. That means. Okay, somehow you got to work into your appointment some way to overcome this. One example that I of real quick, if I can.

Yeah.

Is the idea of, well, you know, I've heard annuities have high fees.

That's a variable annuity.

It is a variable annuity. What you've got is you've got a document that actually breaks down exactly the type of product that you've selected and how that doesn't have high fees, high risk. It doesn't.

So I can show you the variable annuity that.

Oh, sure, absolutely. And it shows that one, too. But the thing is, you've seen, obviously, oh, this is something that people are. They have this misconception that there's one annuity out there, one type of annuity, and it's this all. It only works this one way. You overcome it. You show them that. Now, guess what? They're not going to ask. Well, I thought annuities had high risk, high fees. No, they're not going to ask it because you just showed them. It doesn't. So build that into your.

Well, this is where I'm able to help my inner circle agents. And the inner circle agents are the people I really. And you can. You can become one. It's a little pricey, comparatively, but one annuity pays for an entire year's inner circle membership. But it wasn't small annuity. I mean, like 300,000. But once again, it comes down to I'm able to coach them on a scenario where they'll tell me, hey, this is what happened in appointment. What should I say? What should I do? And right now, all my inner circle people, I'm reaching, and there's very specific things that almost everybody's run into the same issues, and we've talked about it in the podcast, but they'll actually go over a case with me. What should have I done?

Right?

And they end up getting this agent I just had had a $600,000 deal.

Yeah.

And they said, why?

We.

I had a conversation with you. This is what I told my client. This is how I ended up getting a deal. And honestly, it was just a simple objection they had, which was an unanswered question.

Right.

Which once I showed him how to answer the question, the client was like, okay, great, let's do it. It was literally like that, okay, great, let's do it.

Right.

So, Yep.

Anything else I do, I want to throw out. I want to give them a little cherry on top, because this was a really great episode. This was a solid episode. A lot of great content, plenty of takeaways for them. But I want to give them one little cherry on top. And it has. Really, honestly, I mean, other than the fact that it's an objection that I want to throw out to you and see how you handle it, it really doesn't pertain to what we've discussed. So kind of random objection. I think that I can do what your product is going to do as far or could do as far as returns. I think I could do that. Well, in the market, even considering the ups and the downs.

How long have you thought that?

I mean, since I've seen your illustration.

Okay, but how long have you been in the market?

Well, I mean, I guess my 401k has been at risk.

So. 401k. And you've contributed that every single year. Right. And they've matched. Right. So what do you know? Your actual returns are in that 401k? You know, because most people count what they contribute and what is matches their gains. Okay, so let's just address that then. The reality is this. So can you tell me where the market's gonna do, what it's gonna be tomorrow?

No.

Five years from now?

No.

Ten years from now?

No.

Okay, so you can't tell me any of that. Right. So then how can you tell me where it's gonna be then?

Well, I'm just saying I think that even if that doesn't matter what I.

Think I could do just. Okay, so up and down. So from 2000, 2013, the S& P was at the same spot. How much money are we dealing with right now that you have?

Half a million.

Half a million. Why are we not dealing 10 or 20 million? If you know the top of the market and bottom market, why are we not dealing with that? I mean, that's the reality. Nobody can time the market. You cannot tell me what it's going to be. Your broker, your banker, your financial guru, your financial planner. Nobody can tell me where the market's going to be. And do you want to base your retirement off of where the markets going to be or when you want to retire? Sure. So that's what it comes down.

Well, and I'll say this too, I.

Can tell you were thinking you were going to stump me.

Well, I had a whole nother statistic that I was going to go into. Here's the thing that people don't, don't quite understand. Is. Objection. Handling with Chad, it's is. Is weird because you almost take away like any desire to actually keep pushing, if that makes sense. Because I had, I mean, I was going to quote you that the last 10 years, the annualized average of the S&P 500 is 12.15%. Okay. That's taking into account all the, all the volatility.

What's the next 10 years?

Well, that, and that's the thing is when you bring in the unknown, we don't know what it's going to be. Then it doesn't matter anymore what it's done because it's. We don't know. There is. No, no.

Is statistically the market higher than what it was in 1950? Yes. What happened in the 80s and the 90s, 401ks got kicked in. What happened in the 2000s, computer trading started. We cannot predict what happened in the 1930s and say, well, the markets went consistently up. Anybody in their brother nowadays, it seems, can become an ipo. They can launch their own company with their own shares and then the company disappears. Or they can be a negative return. In other words, they're not making any profit or. But they can still launch an IPO for $5 billion. It doesn't make sense to me. So we go back to what is the market going to do? You cannot.

Nobody can say yes, that's exactly right. That's great. Love that.

Okay, so I hope this helps you guys. You have a great day and happy selling.