How To Select The Best Product | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 215

On this week's episode, we're going to be talking about how to select the best product.

Hey everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode. I am Chad Owen, owner of Retirement Realize Financial Retirement Realize Agents Academy. And you are the one that is the figurehead between that or for that.

I would say, oh yeah, I get to, I get to be a part of it. But I find it interesting you always refer to yourself as Owner of Retirement Realized Financial and Retirement Realized Agents Academy and never like $40 million annuity producer like this year. Does that feel too arrogant to say.

No because I've worked my tail off.

Yeah.

No, it doesn't. To say I'm 15 years in the making to do 40 million this year, that doesn't feel arrogant at all. Because anybody who's written that kind of volume knows literally what's involved in doing that. And there's no amount of self confidence, arrogance, whatever, that could ever.

Justify the numbers. Those numbers are hard earned and you have to have a lot of expertise. Expertise is generally earned by studying and retention. And so, oh man, it's never stop learning. And I. Even if I hit 40 million, is that where I'm going to stop? No.

Right?

I mean, next year I'll shoot for 50 million and I'll still try and do the same amount of vacation time. And you know, people look at, you know, we spent a lot of money on this trip when we went Alaska a while ago. And part of it's because I just found souvenir after server. I mean, I found some jade knives and I found some walrus bone carvings and I outspent my wife more than I ever have on any vacation whatsoever because she's just, you know, especially when we go to like Europe or she's like, everything fits me because she's five foot nine. Yeah, like everything fits me. And so she doesn't have to go to the tall section or whatever. And so she's really good at finding stuff. This time in Alaska, she didn't find many things. Yeah, she, she got, I think I got her a set of earrings and a necklace that she found that she liked. But she's not gonna wear a walrus bone necklace. I can't imagine that either. And she's not into like, you know, there was something called the northern light stone, which a is topaz. And she really liked that. I'm like, oh, of course. Let's get that. It's. It was, it was really pretty.

It's topaz. The kind of yellowish.

Oh, no, topaz can be all Sorts of colors.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Especially if you start doing irradiated stones where you apply heat or pressure to them, you can change the color of the stone.

Oh, wow.

So, yeah, there's all sorts of things. Topaz isn't just one color. I mean, the two primary are golden and blue, I was going to say.

Because I thought it was. I think it's my birthstone.

Yeah. Most people, when. If it's your birthstone is generally the blue. And how do I know all this? Everybody's like, how the hell that. I was in the jewelry business for 12 years and I've retained that information. I was really good in the jewelry business, but once again, it was because of studying.

Yeah.

There are so many different types of stones and which. What. You know, if you're someone who's real hard on rings, you don't get an emerald, you don't get an opal, you don't get a pearl. You know, those too soft. So if you. You do a sapphire or ruby or. Which are saffron, ruby are made out of corundum. So. Yes, I remember all that. It's a number nine on the Moscow. And so of course.

It'S funny though, because it's. It's something. You know, I became a certified gemologist. And, you know, the one thing I loved about jewelry is because it's. It's something jewelry's always bought for happy occasions.

Right.

And that's what I loved about the business. That's true. That's why, honestly, this business can be a little challenging because there are people, no matter what, no matter how hard you try, you cannot find a product for them. No matter how bad you want it in your heart, they just don't have enough money or they require too much to live off of, or they have too much debt or they waited too long, or they had some major financial hardship or life circumstance. And no matter what, you can't fix that. And generally, when people are buying jewelry, if they could afford it, you know, it was always a happy occasion.

Yeah. And I'll say with that, as somebody that works with agents in the marketing organization, percentage of cases that I come across versus, like, things that are actually doable go up. Because if an agent's capable of finding the best product and the best solution, they sell it.

Yes.

They go and they get it through.

That is very.

And they're reaching out to the marketer for those that they can't figure out. And so the percentage of those that are just like, this is what we can do. And what this they're asking for or looking for it. We can't, that's not going to happen.

I mean I use my example and I talked in the last podcast last week about mortgage protection business and there were some people I just couldn't help because amount of coverage they wanted could never be met by the amount they wanted to spend. But then when I found out there was fully underwent products that they could get more coverage for a lower price, I was able to help a lot more.

Right.

But because the organization I worked with only focused primarily on non med products, they limited themselves. But once I expand that, that's one of the main reasons I started my own company is because I was tired of the marketing organization telling me, well we're only going to be doing this product line with this company. And I just don't work that way. I've had one really solid product for the past, well Since August of 2019, I've had a really solid company, really solid product. But somebody asked me, they go, is this going to be available next month? I don't know.

Right.

And I am not loyal to this company.

Right.

I'm loyal to the product. Now how am I loyal to the company is when they do good customer service, when they treat my clients well, that is a big thing to me. But if they treat my clients well, but their new product just isn't even remotely competitive, then that's time to move on. Yeah, I'm loyal to my client first.

Yeah.

And I'm loyal to me. I'm loyal to. Because you know, I've heard someone there was a while and this was years ago, but there's this product that was really good, but the compensation was half and I'm going, I just can't operate off of that compensation with the amount I need to spend on marketing, the amount I need to pay taxes on the market, paying for the building, you know, all sorts of things, I just couldn't do that. And it's just like if and you say, well that's not right. Okay. Every business has to operate off of a project profit margin. And so you know, if you're operating off of a profit margin that you are losing money every single month, then you're not going to work, going to make it. So that's why I tell people when you're picking a product for a client, there's three things you have to consider. I always consider the client first.

Right.

But as well as, and almost as important as the agent and the insurance company, there's three organizations that have to do well, the client, the agent and the company. Why? If you want a company to give ridiculous rates, ridiculous compensation, and you're going, they go out of business in three years. What could that do for your client? So you always have to look at the. What is the best for all three groups.

Yeah. And if the insurance company is actually, and I think you've probably told this to clients before, you want the insurance company to be making money because as they make more money, they make improvements, they bring on new people, their staffing grows, their support gets better, Everything gets better. It's what happens when there's money.

Yeah. This one company I'm talking about, actually, I know two companies that I can think of right off the top, top of my head. They actually gave a better indexing strategy to clients that had already bought years before. And I was like, how did that happen? How is that even possible that you now allow this new potential index option, which is done better in your offering to existing clients? It's just great customer service. But it's. They had a really good profitable year, so they were able to bring it out and they.

And they went. Rather than just putting that in, lining their pockets, they gave that back to their clients.

And I have no problem with companies making money, but when you do at the spite of your client and your employees or your agent, then that's a problem. Just as you know, it's got to be balanced well.

And I'll go back to what you said, even about the commission thing, because that's not like I've got your four criteria that you look at. And commission isn't even listed on those four things.

No, definitely not.

But it is something that, at least at some levels, consider it. And the way that I consider it is if you're making half with each case and you have to end up like your fixed. Your fixed expenses are fixed.

Yeah, there's so, yeah, a lead costs the same amount. The taxes you pay, the licensing, the, I mean, all the different things involved with the business, all that, it's the same actually. It goes up.

Right. Realistically, the easiest knob to try and turn to regulate expenses in that scenario is the marketing. So what ends up happening? You do less marketing and people would think, oh, well, that just means Chad would write a little bit less business. No, that's also fewer people that get solutions to their problems.

Absolutely. So I look at, the more I have out there for feelers, the more people I'm able to help and I know I'm going to do the right thing for them.

Exactly.

And we all know, and I'm not saying anybody that's listening to this, whatever, I'm not saying anything. But we all know of agents that have massively messed over clients. And whether it's lack of knowledge or, I mean I, you know, my brother said something a long time ago that really has stuck with me. If you made a mistake on accident or on purpose, the result is the same to the client. And it stuck with me real well. If you accidentally made a mistake, is that a little better than purposely making a mistake? Technically, morally, yes. But.

You could also say if you accidentally made a mistake, that means you didn't research or study the way you needed to. And if you studied the way you needed to and you research the product well, then you might not have made that mistake, but the result is the same to the client. So that's why I'm so such a stickler when it comes to knowing the product, knowing the companies, knowing what's available out there. Because I don't want to accidentally make a mistake because I didn't know about a particular product or particular company that could have done better for the client. So yeah, yeah.

And there's a difference between intentions and motives as well. You can have, you can have the right intentions and the wrong motives and end up being it be the wrong thing or if good intentions and poor tactics, all those things come into play, there's big difference. True.

But attention and motive is the same. If I'm motivated to do the right thing, my intention is going to mirror that.

Well, I guess, I guess what's the, what's the driver for the thing in the first.

Yeah, if I want to do the best for myself because I want to make the most amount of money.

Well, right. You may not have intention to hurt your client, but you're looking for yourself.

Well, there's annuity companies right now I could definitely write business more and make higher compensation, but it's not the best product for the client.

Right.

But there has to be that balance.

So there are four things that you look at when selecting product. Company financial stability.

Financial stability is utmost the most important.

And that's why you have it number one. The second one you list is.

Wait, wait, notice I said financial stability, not their rating.

Oh, that's a good distinction to make.

Because I, I, and I'm not, I'm not throwing out conspiracy theories and all that, but I'm telling you, it's weird to me how all these triple A rated mortgage backed securities collapsed 2007 to 2009 that I believe I'll just say major publication called three of the rating institutions the three blind mice. You know, there. There was some very good points in this major news publication that said that these were bought ratings. So I want to know the financials.

The actual numbers, the actual.

What's her asset to service?

Give me a letter. Give me a number. Yeah. Make a T shirt.

Yeah, absolutely. I want to know where you're putting your money. How much do you have in junk bonds? How much do you have in. You know, and granted, that's a rating system, too, but if you have a high asset to surplus ratio, that's. That's a really good thing for me.

Yeah. Yeah. So financial stability of the company, benefits of the product.

Yep. So what do we need to do for the client? What do they want, and which product or company is going to benefit them the most?

Yep. Customer service.

Absolutely. Do not put me on hold. Do not put my client on hold now. Right now, I will tell you, we are in a very challenging situation because we have a lot of people trying to move money out of the market right now. So not only on the. The institutions trying to send money out, you also have the institutions trying to receive money. There is a lot of transactions. A lot of these companies are double, triple, even quadruple the number of apps they normally receive in a week. Then on top of that, you got to add all the people that. I don't know why this is, but every industry is struggling right now for employees. I mean, we went. Even when we were on our trip, every person in that store was brand new, and this was a convenience store. So I wanted to get propane for the rv. And they're like, well, our propane guys out. And I said, you guys said seven days a week, 24 hours a day. They go, yeah, but we only have one propane guy, and he's not in today. And I wasn't mad or anything. I'm just going. That just goes to show you, he said, every single one of them is brand new.

And so you have a crazy amount of turnover. You have people that are trying. I mean, most. These insurance companies. I don't know if I. I can't say I haven't. It is very rarely that I've ever talked to an insurance company about customer service, and they blow you off. I mean, most insurance companies really do want good customers.

They want it. They may just not have the infrastructure for it.

Yep.

And so there are some out there that they could have it, and they still don't.

They choose not to. I can think of two right now. So, you know, it's. I mean, if you're on hold for long periods of time or I can't. If I can't get in touch with a supervisor, that's almost always a no go for me. If I don't have a dedicated supervisor I can talk with. If I run into an issue that customer service person is not taking care of, that's a no go for me. I need to make sure that if it's a situation that my client, if they call and they can't get an answer, I always have someone I can get.

Right.

So customer service is huge for me.

So in the last one is highest payout or growth potential, depending on what is the money.

So to hear clearly, highest realistic growth potential.

Sure.

Because, I mean, there's some illustrations that people showing double digits. Yeah. I'm going. Wait a second. Come on, man.

Yeah.

You know, and that. You got to be careful with that right now because a lot of illustrations are really illustrating well. But I do show them. I go that this is the high. This is a low of the participation rate. Now, most of the companies, actually, all the companies I use will have a good rate integrity.

Right.

In other words, once the client's locked in, there's not much movement in there. But there are some companies I've dealt with in the past that I've seen. Wait a second. Your renewal rate dropped by more than 60%. Whoa. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I've seen. Fortunately, none of my clients have been at them, but I've seen some statements. I'm going, wow. Your participation rate went from 100% down to 40%. I mean, that's nuts. Or your cap rate went from 10% down to four and a half percent. You know, I've seen those. Wow. And those are. Those are tough. Those are really tough.

Yeah, that's. That's not a fun one.

Yeah. You have to know. And once again, this is something that's really hard to learn, though, because it's the years of experience of seeing a whole bunch of other clients, statements from other companies that has allowed me to see renewal rates. Some companies will publish them. Yeah. So you do want to. You know, it wouldn't hurt to ask your company, do you have renewal rates on this product?

Yeah.

And you have to be careful, too, because if you have an index strategy, it's only two years old. Well, then you could go on the back tested, which I still count. But remember, that's back tested off of today's participation, not what it was two years ago.

Right.

So you just have to know those kind of things.

So you rank these in those in that order.

Financial stability, best benefits, best customer service, highest payout or potential income growth.

So if you come across a client with a scenario and you're looking at product and you find a product that actually has the best, you know, income.

Or income growth potential or whatever, forget it.

So and you just go to the next one down the list and then figure out from there.

Yeah, customer service is, is real high for me.

It is.

I mean if you have a, if you have a really good payout percentage but you can't get, let's say someone passes away and you can't get in touch with customer service, that's not good for the client.

It's not. And, and two, if your clients making any kind of calls as well to do any of their, if they're self serving at any level and they're spending an hour and a half or two hours on hold, even if it's once or twice or three times over the.

Course of actually just have contract, an hour on hold. And I'm like, I'm so sorry. And I did call the organization and they unfortunately they had like this big sickness where a whole bunch of people.

Got sick and they got inundated with.

Yeah, they got inundated with apps. So I was like, okay. So I called the client back, I said, hey, I know this company. This is not the norm. And fortunately they fixed it.

But that's one thing to be aware of right now is in this market with mygas doing what they are doing. If a company wants to increase their.

Sales volume, all they have to do is pump out a migrate that's at the top and it will come flooding in and they'll be slammed for the next month or two.

That's why, you know, insurance companies do have to be careful on how much they increase their rates to draw in more business. Because if you're going to draw more business, make sure you have the customer service to support that new business. Yeah, yeah. These are all things that, this is what we do. This is how we can help you. Because remember, I am consistent. Like right now I have almost, I've been, you know, back for a little bit, but I still have 2 to 3 million in pending business.

Well, just consider those two things alone. Renewal rate history and customer service. Those are two things that you're not going to see on an illustration or on a brochure more than likely or in a product guide. But those are two things. That may be not quantified but are remarkably like they are high quality types of things that and they'll make or break a client's perception of you and the company.

Absolutely. While the last one we talked about was referrals, if they get renewal rates and they're horrible, are you ever going to get any referrals? No.

No.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I know this was kind of an overview. There are some things I know are going to be a little confusing. So if you want to reach out to Caleb, just do that. What's your email, Caleb?

Calab north like the direction nor th@retirement realized.com.

Yeah, because there's I know when we start talking about participation rates and spreads, newer people aren't going to fully get that, so. Well, I hope this helps you guys and you have a great day. And of course, happy selling.

Sam.