How to Interpret Appointment and Closing Rates for Areas of Improvement | 7FAS Podcast | Ep. 226

On this week's episode, we're going to talk about how to interpret your numbers.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode. I am Chad Owen and. Excuse me. Still, as you can tell, recovering. I don't know what it is, man, but sometimes when I get kicked in the tail, I think it's. I just don't let my body tell me what to do.

Get more stubborn.

Absolutely. Like stink. You will not tell me what to do. I'm still gonna work, I'm still gonna do what I need to do. But hey, there are many things, many, many, many people that need help right now.

Yeah.

And so I came up with this topic. You come up with a lot of them, but this one is how to interpret your numbers.

Yep.

So do you know where I'm going with this?

I do. You're going into basically reading your appointment rate and reading your closing rate and looking at those metrics as a means to determine what parts of your process need to be improved.

And this is why I tell people you need to track your numbers. Because as someone who has written over 260 + million since 2008 and I'm probably going to hit 40 million this year, I still track my numbers and I still analyze them. Why if I have a bunch of appointments but I don't have a high closing rate, which I do have a high closing rate.

You do. Phenomenally high closing rate. What is it like? I put it down here, 76.07.

76.07%. So let's say for whatever reason that number dropped down to 40%. What do you think? I'm going to be looking at your appointment process? Yes. So I would look at and go, okay, I have a 76% closing ratio in an appointment. That means I am pretty good at explaining how the product works, how it benefits them and why they need this in their life. But if I sat there and it dropped down to 40%, which is still a good closing ratio, I would go, you know, what am I missing? Am I not taking enough time to do a thorough fact finder? Am I not taking enough time to go over the purpose of the money or am I explaining the product in a way that for whatever reason they're not comprehending? You know, we have a whole setup in our academy, retirement, realized, financial. What do they do? I'm trying to remember, do they go to our agents academy or can they get it from RRF right now? What are you referring to get to the academy?

Oh, you go to our agentsacademy.com.

Okay. So our agentsacademy.com and I have it all laid out, broken down. I think I have a segment just for fact finding. Then I have an appointment process and I go into step by step of what needs to be done during that process. And I will still look at that consistently if I see my numbers dropping. And even if I don't see them dropping, I will still go through that. Now let's say I have a lot of appointments, but I have a lot of no shows.

Right.

What does that mean?

It means your phone process.

My phone process needs help. So that means what am I doing when I'm on the phone with a client? Am I truly taking the time to do the mini fact finder, building the rapport on top of that, building the value of why it's important to meet with me. Because I hear a lot of people, they'll have these appointments set up. What is my appointment set up? Do you have that too?

Yeah. So, and this is, this is actually something I wanted to get into in a little bit because I give some target numbers and your appointment rate is actually on the low end, but we've got context.

So it's about 30% is my appointment rate. That means the number of leads I get. Now there's is some clarification to that. There's a lot of people that don't even qualify if you don't have 50,000 emergency funds and savings. 50,000 investable amounts. Even though I got the lead, I just don't meet with them. Yeah, you need to have emergency funds and savings. And that's a lot right there. I mean, out of the different, the radio leads, there are so many people that I get calls from that I. They have no money.

Right. And more context to that too. When you're passing leads to local agents.

Yes.

How quickly are you doing that?

One month. When normally I would go to three months. So. And remember, I don't count my agent's volume in my volume. My volume is. My volume is who I've actually written. It's the policies I've done. But I used to wait three months before I'd ever stop calling the lead. Now I wait a month. So that also will cut into that. But I know that if I'm sticking around 30% because the number of leads I pass, because of how quick I pass leads on, I know that that's still a really good percentage.

It is. And you're gonna have, there's, there's a number there. I, I generally say if you can get in contact, you have just a contact at some point. And that's not even saying first contact. The first time you call a bachelor, let's say you get 10 leads. First time you call leads, you're not going to get in contact with 7 out of 10.

Oh no.

The first call there's going to be.

Man, I love it when that happens though. I love it. It's a lot. Well, today I had all these leads and I got in touch with four out of probably 20. And God, they took a long time on the phone and I already knew three of them. There's nothing I could do to help them. One's selling a property and nobody's buying it yet. Another one is 45 years old and there's just nothing I can do to help them. But they wanted to talk a long time on the phone. And then there's another one that was. I knew I couldn't help them, but I needed to take the time to help them. And even though I know I'm not going to meet with them, they're just, we're in a bad financial situation.

Try and give them some.

Yeah, so I'll take the time to help. But you know, there's so many. Even my scrub leads, you know, I have the limit of 25,000 on that. And you say, well, why don't you bump it up? Because I can't. That's what they put it at. Right. So if somebody has a 25,000 or $50,000, and I paid 350 bucks for that.

Right.

I'm not running that deal.

Well, I, and, and why I Look at your 30 appointment rate and I look at that as actually a good appointment rate is because out of any number of leads, you're probably only ever going to get in contact with about 70%.

Yeah, that's seven out of. Right.

There's gonna be.

If you're very consistent at making calls over a long period of time. So if you're calling for three to six months, that would be, that would be an accurate number.

Yeah, there's going to be a couple, a few out of every batch or number of leads each week that you just, for whatever it is, can never get in contact with them. You're going to have some that are not qualified by your standards and then some of them, they're, they answer, but it's not until you actually pass the lead on. So when I look at a 31% appointment rate based on all the context, honestly, that's probably booking like for the number of people that are qualified and that Actually answer the phone. You're probably north of 60% of the people that you talk to that are actually qualified. That are. But. But it's your close rate that's most impressive to me at 76.07. And what these have equated to for you this year, Chad, is real interesting. You've had fewer appointments. I. I made a comment to you earlier this. Oh, gosh, it was earlier. Maybe it was later last month. I don't remember about how it seemed this year. Like you've spent more time in the office.

Yes.

Here. Than you've spent in the last several.

Years, which I know you love that.

Oh, it's the best. Yeah. Yeah. It's my favorite.

I sense some sarcasm.

Yeah.

That means because you actually have to work, because I'm here, you don't get to.

I don't get to kick my heels and just take the day.

But what's interesting about that is you're. You're on pace to do over 40 million, your best year ever, by literally $13 million in premium this year. So. Million. Over a million a month. As. I mean, that's crazy to me.

And still taking off 15 weeks.

Still taking off 15 weeks and doing it with fewer. What seems like fewer appointments. And I think it's because your close rate is so stinking high this year.

Yeah. And I plan on continuing it that way. I mean, I feel I'm at the stage now of the refinement in my process and system is. Is about as good as it can get. And I'm not bragging on that. I mean, you watch these guys that hit a baseball at 90 plus miles an hour. Me, on my best day, I might be getting the bat to start to swing once it hits the glove, you know, So I mean, it. Those guys just, they know how to analyze it. And even their batting average. A good batting average is what, 300? Yeah, yeah. I mean, over 300 is good batting average. So it means out of every 10 pitches, they hit three.

Right.

But, man. And I don't even know what the statistic would be on top of that, but. And how many of those are actually home runs or big hits? You know, I, I'm very happy with my percentage. So I mean, at 30%, even with how I screen the leads and I. And I pass leads on, I still count that as a success.

It is.

I also look at this from the standpoint of the process, man. I mean, when I'm swinging, it is a nice smooth swing. The forms good. My stance is there. I'm Ready to hit that ball out of the park. And now, remember, I'm not talking about dollar amount. That's just not how I look at things. I tell clients all the time, if I have a client that's in the top 15% of all my clients, it is never to do with a dollar amount. It's to do that they can retire, and they never have to worry about outliving their money, and they never have to worry about having to look for another job. And that's probably 15% of my clients. And I have people that have $300,000 that we can do that. They may have a good pension. They may have good survivorship on their pension. They may have no debt. It's not okay, you have $2 million. You're in the top 30% or 15% of my clients. That's not how I do it.

Right.

I am way more focused on can they retire versus how much money do they have.

Yeah.

And so that process is pretty systematic. It was interesting because when I was gone for three weeks, I ran appointments last week, and when I was making my calls on Monday, and I'm sorry, this was a few weeks ago.

I felt a lot of times I have to kind of get back into the groove again, and I didn't. You're just there. Flowed. And I'm like, wow, that is really weird. And then I went on my first appointment. I'm like, okay, it's been four weeks since I've actually sat in front of someone, but it just came out. It just smooth. Everything was fine. And it's writing a million dollars that. With the week after I got back, and it's. It's just systematic. And that's over years of practice. Now, this is where you have an advantage on the Academy, because I'm teaching you how to do what I do. And I know there's a lot of people on the podcast right now that they're not part of the Academy, and, oh, I'm going to wait for this. I'm going to wait for that. I'm telling you, man. I mean, when we have a pro plus level at $199. Shoot. Buy it for yourself for Christmas.

Yeah.

I mean, and then the reality is, how many Christmas gifts do you get will pay you back, literally your first deal.

Yeah.

I mean, that's just how it works. You have. If you. If you pay an annual membership of what, 2000 or something? 2400. And it. I mean, that's what, a $25,000 annuity. I mean, to help Yourself get that much better. And I'm not trying. Remember, If I'm writing 40 million a year in annuities, you know what I'm making compensation, what I make at $200 a month. That is not why I'm doing this. I'm doing this because I genuinely want to see our industry change.

Yeah.

I love hearing success stories of agents that know their numbers and they can improve their numbers. And then they tell me, hey, I'm writing. I used to write $150 per case. Now I'm writing $250 per case. I celebrate that.

Yeah.

Is it my money? No. You know, I mean, if you're in our academy, I'm getting no overrides.

Right.

You know, if you're in our agency, I'm still, I still do not take money from our company. So, you know, that's the thing that people don't realize is we have retirement realized financial, where I actually have agents, the right business under us, that then I have retirement realized agents academy where I train agents how to do this. I take no money from that on a regular basis.

Yep. Well. And I'll, I'll kind of share something to round this out with the academy. And knowing your numbers, there are a few things you need to track. Numbers wise to be able to calculate your appointment rate and your closing rate and then determine, okay, does my call process need improvement? Does my appointment process need improvement? Where am I? Where am I off here? You need to know the leads you have coming in. Track your leads in your appointment that you book and then the deals that you close.

All right. The leads that come in, the appointments that you book and then the ones that show up.

Yeah, you do track. Sits as a separate, as a separate metric.

Because that's important to know. Because if I'm booking appointments but they're not showing, that means I'm missing something in the phone conversation.

That's true. And then deals closed and with those four things, you'll be.

Deals closed. And then how much are you getting per.

Oh, average case size.

Average. Yep. Not per application, because I do per household.

Right.

And the reason why is because if I have a couple that we have a non qualified joint, we. They each have a Roth IRA and they each have an ira. You're, you know, it doesn't, it's not.

It'S one sale with five applications because.

You can't combine funds. So it's still I do per household.

Yeah. That's good. There is a document that I created to do this by quarter. So it has, it's maps out. You put your different lead companies in there, different marketing systems, whatever it is.

Oh, that's a, that's another one though. Lead companies. So I track. You track it by each lead company. Because if I have a dog lead system, I'm not doing. I actually have a lead system where I have 30 some leads right now and I still haven't closed one. But I think that's me. I really do. I think there's something in my psyche and I don't know what it is, but it's this barrier I'm not getting because I had a lead source that did that before and I had 60 leads that I hadn't closed. And now it's a very, very, very good lead source. And I don't know why they're. Same concept, same system. I don't know what it is. Maybe I look at it and go, I'm not familiar with this lead source. I've had this lead source for over a year.

Yeah.

And I'm still sitting there going, why aren't I closing any of these? But at $350 a lead and let's say 30 leads, I mean, I'm almost 10, over 10 grand into this, but all it takes is still $200,000 annuity and I paid for the entire system. I just need to get past it. So I know this particular lead system I have some sort of psychological barrier to and, but my other. Yeah, so I'm, I'm still not. Now there have been lead systems where I went through 30 leads and I'm going, okay, just by my conversations, something's not right. It's not working. I'm not keeping. I've, I, well, went over a million dollars in testing lead systems. Yeah. If I tell you that my lead system works, it's because I've tested those and ran them. If they didn't work, I canceled them. And so when you're part of our organization, we share that with you. And you know, you can't tell me the leads don't work because I use the exact same ones.

That's right. That's right. So if you want to use that document, I'm going to verify here when once we've done recording that it's in the academy, but it should be in the academy. And it'll literally help you organize all those metrics so that you can actually calculate your appointment rate, your close rate, and determine what areas of your process need the most improvement. Because realistically we've done, we've done A whole podcast on this topic alone, Chad, where we talked about a 20% improvement in your phone process, your appointment process, and your average case size can yield more than 2xing your production.

Oh, 100%. There's no doubt about it.

It's crazy. What just compounded improvements in your home cycle.

You increase your production and your productivity, then you end up buying more leads, and then all of a sudden you have a surplus of leads. Then you have no desperation because you're getting plenty of leads and you never shut them off. Why? Because you have constant business coming through. So, yeah, I can't stress it enough. Make sure you're tracking your business. If you need help, reach out to Caleb. Give him a call. Yeah.

At 512-798-3500. Extension five.

You think I would know that by now, but I don't.

You just call me on my cell. That's my desk.

That's true, Right? To me, it doesn't matter. Even. Even know I have a organization I work with and they have a landline. I always call the cell phone. Why? I'm not going to reprogram a number, so. Well, I hope this works well with you guys. And obviously, are we doing an a podcast the week of Christmas, we'll probably release one. We'll do it. We love you guys enough. That's our Christmas present to you.

I mean, evidently. Chat, chat. Give you guys context. Chad wasn't feeling good today. Takes like a, like a seven minute nap. Knocks back a espresso drink.

Yep.

And here we are making the podcast for today. So it's a labor of love.

I really. It is. I really do genuinely want to help people. So obviously have a great day and happy selling.

Sam.