How to Replicate a Proven Sales Process | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 254

One of the biggest problems I find with agents is they don't follow a proven process or they try and take a process and they try and mirror. Exactly. And that is never to be done that way. I have a process that I put together, obviously, through the academy that it's like, this is how I do it now. Put your own personality to it. Right, right. And that's really what it comes down to. If you don't have a methodical, proven process, you will not have a high success rate. That's just what it comes down to. So welcome to the show. I'm Chad Owen, the host, and I do share co hosting with Caleb north. And sometimes he's just purely the host.

Sometimes I do more talking.

You almost always. If you look at our podcast last week, he does most of talking. Well, not really, but we all have good things. I mean, that's one thing that I love about what we get to do on these podcasts is because, you know, I'm out in the field just like y', all, running appointments like crazy. And he's back here taking all the calls from agents. So we're able to mold that together. And what do agents truly need? Yeah, and process is a big one.

It's huge. I mean, to go back to what we talked about last week, we did a poll, and over half the people said, hey, I need more training on sales process. Well, okay, here we go. We're going to talk today about the skeleton, kind of the bones of Chad's sales process. And then you can take that and you can put your own meat on those bones, or you can jump into retirement realized agents academy, and deep dive the process even more there and really kind of apply all of that in depth and detail that Chad's doing. But to give you guys some, I guess, oversight or some insight into the call process, we're just going to give them kind of the basic formula and outline. So, number one, intro. You introduce yourself, you remind them that they had questions, you build up your expertise briefly, and then you get them talking.

And how do I do that?

You ask them, what questions do you have for me?

No matter what lead.

Right, right. It doesn't matter.

The ending statement on any introduction is, you called into me, Whatever that is, Whatever. However, your lead system, you had some questions for me. What can answer for you? Yep. It's that easy.

Yeah.

It's not creating a whole different script for every type of lead that's out there. What questions do you. You reached out to me. What questions do you have for me? Yep.

And then answer questions briefly, generally. But you always do a great job of then pivoting back to taking control of the conversation. Right. Because the person that's asking the questions generally is the one that's in control of the conversation.

You should never, ever, ever allow the client to control the conversation. And I'm not saying they don't have value, they don't have input, they don't have needs. But you know what? I'm flying the plane, and not once do I ever get up to go to that cockpit and take control. Control that plane. But they're asking, how are you doing? We're going to this destination, whether you like. Well, they give you that last second. We are heading here if you are not to get off the plane. But when we're flying, that pilot has complete control. And that's how I have all my conversations. It's not a power struggle. It's just I'm an expert in this area. I've done this thousands and thousands of times. This is the process, how we find information. I don't want to get sidetracked because I can chase squirrels all day long. I mean, if you guys have been following my podcast for more than a month, you can see I am a squirrel chaser. And you don't help at all.

Yeah. You've got to have control of that conversation.

Yeah. So the way that you do that is you open the door for them to start talking. They ask their questions, you answer them. Generally, you're creating subconsciously the expectation that, hey, this is. I ask questions, Chad gives answers. But what you do is, is before they have the chance to pipe back in, you've answered their questions. Generally, you continue maintaining the microphone in the conversation, so to speak, and you go right into your own questions to them. Well, you just got done answering theirs, so now subconsciously, what are they obligated to do? Answer yours.

Yeah.

So that's when you get your mini fact finder.

And you know how many times my questions that they ask are questions they asked me a question and how do I answer them? A lot of times with a question question. Because I'm digging deep on what's important to them.

Yeah.

So how does an annuity work? Well, what do you want it to do right? You know? Well, I'm not going to tell you how it works if I don't know what you need it to do right. Well, I need something that provides income that I can never outlive. Great. How long are you going to live for? Well, I don't know where's the stock market going to be tomorrow, let alone five or ten years from now? I don't know. That's what my product does, is it helps take care of those questions. No other product out there can do that.

That's right.

Now, do you want to meet with me if I say something like that?

Well, right. The best salespeople generally are good question askers.

Yes. And good listener.

Yeah.

Because when. When you're a good listener, it's very important to understand, and we're in a generation where listening to them is that you agree with everything they say. Listening to me is hearing the root of the problem and finding a solution to it. You know, I don't want to go to work. It's 10am okay. That's what you're saying. But there's a bigger issue. There's a root to that. You're lazy and you haven't been taught work ethic. So let's figure that one out.

Right.

And so in all conversations pertaining to financial information, there is always a symptom, but it's not the problem. And so you have to dig into what's the problem. You know, it's like that joke, and I'm not going to say it's. There's a person, because I could get in a lot of trouble for this. There's a person that says, doc, I don't know what my problem is. I touch my knee and it hurts. I touch my head and it hurts. I touch my elbow and it hurts. Doc, what's my problem? And he goes, well, your fingers broke.

Yeah. Interesting.

I mean, you got to find what is the broken thing.

Right?

And that's what the process does. It finds the broken thing. Not just disregard the symptoms and get to the root of the problem so you can find a cure. That's right.

So you intro yourself. You remind them that they had questions, they reached out. You build up your own expertise. You get them asking questions. You answer those questions. Generally, you immediately segue into questions of your own. AKA the mini fact finder. You get that mini fact finder's worth of information. You explain what you do. So what I do is xyz. Then you book the appointment. I'm gonna be in your area.

Don't. When you're explaining what you're doing, would it be okay if I came out there and I explained everything? No. What I do is I come out there with my kit, my book, I explain how things work. It takes about 30, 35 minutes, and we go over questions, and then I leave you My product, my brochures, my illustrations, my kit, my book. And you do your due diligence. I didn't ask them. I said this is what I do. Well, can you just send it me? No. Okay, let's go back to what I do. Yeah, you know, it's like I didn't say I send you the book. You read it, then you put on the shelf, and then I never talk to you again. Because you let life happen.

Yeah, no, that's it. That's. That's the call process. And so you can see how you just do that. You're not wasting all this fluff time talking about random things that don't matter. You can book an appointment with a lead you've never spoken to in 10 or 15 minutes.

And remember, this has nothing to do if you care about the person or not. Because I care about the person. If someone tells me they don't have money to retire, that sucks. That really does bother me, but it doesn't mean I have to take time to pacify them when they're the ones who didn't spend the time to save for the retirement. Or. Or they have a house way too big and way too many cars that they didn't save for retirement. Now, I am not saying I don't care when someone had some catastrophic situation happen. Like a lady I talked to, husband of 30 years just disappeared and they have no money. I'm not talking about stuff like that. I totally feel for that. But you've got to get to the point.

Yeah, absolutely. So getting into the first appointment, the bones of that one, you start out, you correct misconceptions typically. So you're explaining things industry wise, often alternative investment type strategies that maybe they've thought could work, but they just don't. Realistically, numerically, or they're not based on.

While you're doing that, you got to make sure you're explaining why they need you or this product at the same time.

Correct.

So what you're doing is not working. You know, especially when somebody tells me why I'm kind of happy where I am. Whether. Why did we. Why do. Why are we even here?

Right?

You know, I did that one time to client these. Well, I. I like kind of where I am. Okay, then why are we even talking? Because clearly you're fine with market volatility. No, I'm actually not. Clearly, you know how long you can live for? Nope, I don't know that either. Okay, well then why am I here? Well, those are the things they need to have talked and Then we had a great conversation after that. Yeah, you start zipping up your bag and willing to walk out because you have someone who's not willing to be helped. You know, I been on the ocean so many times. We cross from Washington state to Hawaii on a sailboat. No matter how many times you throw a life preservative person, if they don't grab onto it, you never jump in to save that person. We used to do charters and you know, you'd see people that would start to panic in the water. You threw them a boogie board or some sort of life preserver. But you never going after them because guess what, if you going after them them, you're drowned too. And you will actually probably be the one that drowns first. Because they panic, they pull you under and you cannot out fight someone unless you get severely physical. You can't. And so when you're talking to people in the financial world and they have these problems, you can throw them life preservers but don't go down with them.

Yeah, that's good. That's really good. It's correct misconceptions. You explain annuities broadly y, right? This is a high level explanation. You go into your fact finder, you do the full fact finder. Now if you recall back to the phone process, right when we were making calls, you got the mini fact finder because you got the mini fact finder, you ran an illustration y that you took to that first appointment. Well, that full fact finder either confirms that that illustration is correct, that's the right product, or it changes course something else.

You don't have to go into every little thing. The disclosure and exact workings of the indexed annuity. And it's just, it's insane because I had someone do, well, I need to understand this a little more. And I'm like, I get that. I said, but how much do you want to understand it? And he said, well, I actually want to understand this completely. I said, okay, so you just showed me this brokerage account. You have stocks, bonds, mutual funds. Tell me about the mutual funds you're in. Well, I don't know. Well, what do they invest in? I don't know. What is fees in this? I don't know. So you have all this risk money out here and you have no idea how it works, what it does, and you're taking some word for it, but you think, because now we have a safe product, you need to know every little detail because it is that simple. Now for people who tell me annuities are complex, I Completely disagree with you. The formation of annuities and what takes to make an annuity is a very complex. But the concept of annuity and how it works is not complex. So it's literally a contract with an insurance company that guarantees something. And this is what it does and it's very simple. So make sure you're not over explaining.

It's like have you ever gotten on a plane before? Well, how do planes work? You know, I mean if you're realistically. We do things, we risk our lives all the time doing things that we don't understand how they work.

And I risk my life doing things, I do understand how they work and I still, still do some stupid things.

So after the fact finder you go into four educational documents. You got one that goes over bear market, the way they work, you've got another one over the different types of products out there, how it compares, why do them? Yeah, you've got a lifetime income article.

Yep.

And then you've got.

It's not Republican, it's not Democrat, it doesn't promote stocks, bonds, mutual funds, it doesn't promote annuities. It just does this weird thing called logic and numbers. Yeah.

So yeah, third party, it's great. And then you have a benefits of indexed annuities chart. And these things help bring a visualization to the education. Right now it's not just words, it's words plus visual. How much better does somebody understand the concept now? Right. If all you're doing is going in and talking to somebody that's you're missing out on half of the education ability.

Yeah.

So you.

And once again, when you're explaining that I go back and try, I'm using these documents but I'm seeing how they're responding to them as well. Most of the time when I'm going through those four documents, there's no questions. Now once I get to the last one of the benefits, then there's questions. Right, but the first three, it's just explaining, this is facts, this is what it is. It's not a Q and A time. I can't recall the last time I've had someone do that during the first three.

Right, so you've done the full fact finder at this point already. And so now you're either going to go through the illustration that you printed out and took with you or if.

The you're talking about after the four documents then I go into the fact finder.

No, I thought you went into the fact finder first and then the four documents and then into the illustration. Is that wrong?

I think you're right. You've caught me on this one. Yeah. You know what I do. Yes. Yep. So I do. Fact Finder 4 documents. Okay. Sorry about that.

That's all right. When you know the man's process better than he does.

Part of the man got up really early and he's really tired. Okay.

But it's the illustration time and it's either going to be the one you took or the fact finder indicated. Hey, we actually need to run a different direction. Now granted, if you're a brand new agent, you're in the just in time process. You're waiting on carrier portal access. There could be a situation where you do the fact finder and you have to tell them, hey, I brought this out based on the mini fact finder that I used. Based on. Based on the full fact finder and this piece of information, we actually need to look at a different product. I can't pull that up for you right now, so I'm going to have to go back and get it. That's.

And clients will appreciate that honesty. They really will be real. And then what? Then what I'll do is I meet after I go. Okay. I can't believe that person didn't have access to all these different companies. I got it right here. Sure.

So there's where having some tenure in the industry comes into play. Definitely beneficial the longer you've been in.

So there's times I have a city, Houston, and I just started getting leads in Houston and I had someone reach out to me, hey, I saw you in my area and I said, bro, Texas is my area, man. And he laughed. He goes, I know. He goes, I just didn't like seeing your name come up in my area. I said, let's go back to the original thing. My area. This is my island. So if you haven't seen Braveheart, you'd understand what I was referring to. But yeah, it's. It's funny.

Oh, man. The visual that I have of you claiming Texas as your territory is a funny one to me. Lastly, you explain the leave behind kit to them. What's in it, where the things are located, and you leave it all with them for them to do their own research and due diligence. But before you leave, you book the second appointment for sure.

And don't be offended that they want to go through the information. I. I'm actually happy when they do that. It does not bother me one bit if they're ready to make the decision, they're Great. If they're not great, it's okay. I actually, it's statistically proven that if you go back a second time, there's less likelihood of them feeling uncomfortable about the decision. I do even the best I'll have where I'll write it the first time, and every once in a while, I'll get someone going, yeah, we need to meet again. Okay, not a problem. Or they'll call me the next morning, freaking out because they signed the paperwork and they're going, yeah, I don't know. Great, no problem. Let's meet again. No big deal. And so it's just how you talk. I don't take offense to it. I want them to feel comfortable.

Yep. Second appointment, if it goes to one, is you're answering questions, clearing up any other misconceptions that may be there, and then you're closing.

Yep.

And how.

What.

Okay, this is an area that I think agents get wrong a lot. They either don't close or they try to close hard. How do you approach that?

I'll use this analogy. So I was talking with one of my someone I was training, and I said, you are really good at walking them around the store and explaining everything in the store, but you are not good at bringing them to the register. And so when I help my clients, I'm showing them all the yummy things, and then I'm making them hungry to where they take themselves to the register. I guess that would be an analogy to use. I mean, you make them hungry enough for what they want, what fulfills their needs and their desires, they are going to the register. You don't need to lead them there.

Does that typically look like just a question? You've answered their questions, and now it's like, okay, well, what's next?

Well, I get more people saying, so, what do we need to do next? More than I have to ask.

There you go. Make them hungry. Then you fill out the application, give.

Them enough salt, they're going to have to drink water.

It's true.

That's true.

Yeah. That's the bones. Take the bones and build your process.

Okay.

I don't know why that's the analogy that's, like, stuck in my head.

It is. And I keep thinking, I ate the bones. Yeah, that's off of some chicken commercial, which you probably know about. But, hey, have fun doing this business. Honestly, this is. We get to change people's life, and we get to change generations. So I hope this helps you. You have a great day, and happy selling.

Sam.