How To Sell Annuities In The Fourth Quarter | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 166

Today we're going to talk about the fourth quarter and why it's usually the best quarter of the entire year.

Hey, everyone, welcome back to this week's episode. I am Chad Owen, the annuity sales coach, owner of Retirement Realized Financial and Retirement Realized Inc. Agents Academy.

That is true.

And this is my sidekick, Boy Wonder. I would not say shotgun because he can't shoot anything.

Yeah, I'm just terrible.

Yeah, yeah, sure. Unless it was a pistol. That time you did the 100 yards with a.22 or 9 millimeter?

9 millimeter.

9 millimeter, yeah. That was the most expensive bet I've had in a long time. I bet he couldn't, he had six shots, I think. And that he couldn't hit it one. One time out of the six. I think you hit it twice, right?

I thought it was three.

No, that's pretty sure.

It was 50% at 100 yards.

Not even with a pistol. Now if you could just. Either way, something that moves regardless of.

Oh, you mean. Never mind. I won't go into that.

Be honorable. Be.

Yeah. Aren't we talking sensitive to our, our audience here? Yes, we are. We're going to talk about the fourth quarter today, why it has the potential and has historically been the best quarter for you. So to give the listeners a little bit of context here, the fourth quarter over the last five years, Chad, you have produced an average of 20% more each month in the fourth quarter than in any quarter prior or the three quarters prior again over the last five years. So it's, it has been consistently, probably.

We could even go back farther than that. I know we just did five years. We did five. I've remembered the fourth quarter always being the big one. Even when I was in the mortgage protection business. Sure. The fourth quarter was always the biggest.

Yeah, well, and there's, I'm trying to understand. We talk about why that is. Right. And it's interesting because generally in the fourth quarter you're likely to see fewer people you meet with. But you say those people that you do meet with are far more serious because of the holidays and the family vacations and the things that are naturally in the fourth quarter. They're all still there. So if they're willing to meet with you, but they're generally more serious than clients that perhaps are trickled in throughout.

The first three quarters. And it makes me wonder too, if it's just people like to do end of year planning. So, and this could be way off, but just a speculation that maybe the people that have more money are the planners.

That's true.

You know, they're the ones that, okay, I'm wrapping up the year, I'm ready to go into next year. So I want to get this taken care of before I go into the next year. And it would make sense logically, you know, that you would have people with that mindset having more money.

It's true, it's true. Generally, planners are. That's that whole just way of living and operating is going to have been there for decades prior while they're working and inevitably end up with larger retirement.

Yeah. So it's a potential.

Okay, well, let's talk about how to properly navigate that then. I mean, you talk about you've got Christmas, you've got Thanksgiving, you know, if people are celebrating Halloween, New Year's, all of that is all right there in the last three months of the year. And inevitably you are going to have people that they don't want to meet.

Yeah, they'll say, oh, can we call after the holidays? Can you give me a call after the holidays? Sure, sure. I mean, if it's your money, right. We don't know what the market's going to be by the end of the time, but if you want to wait till next year, that's totally up to you.

Sure.

And then I get people going, oh, you know what? The market has been doing a little crazy. And I'll say something along the lines, I mean, really, when you think about it, what amazes me, and this is not pertaining to the fourth quarter, but when you talk to someone who's like in their mid-70s. Well, I don't know if I can meet next week. I have a lot of doctor appointments. Well, when do you have doctor appointments? I mean, are you meeting 50 hours with doctor. Oh, no, I just got to prepare and get ready for the doctor's appointments. I'm like, these are regular checkups. And then I call them the next. Yeah, I got some more doctor's appointments.

Like, if they have two doctors appointments.

I know it wipes out the whole week. That was their excitement for the week. So, you know, I mean, people get these Christmas parties or they gotta go Christmas shopping and they, they think that's gonna take up all this time. Sure. And the reality tell people right out it's going to take me 35, 40 minutes to explain everything. If you have questions, it will take longer. But I just want to make sure that with what I'm explaining to you and the information I'm getting from you, I can easily get that done in 35 minutes. Yeah, and that almost always lets the guard down, because remember, we have to read. We have to remember that other people that went before us and the seminar person that says it's only going to take an hour, and then two hours later, they're just now wrapping up the seminar. Right. Or the water softener guy that came over and said, I'm only going to meet with you for 15 minutes. And three hours later, they're eating your cookies, grabbing milk out of your refrigerator. Refrigerator. Not that that hasn't happened to me. And I almost busted his face open. But anyway, I just like, dude, those are number one. Those were Girl Scout cookies, okay? And he opened the package, and he goes to reach in the cupboard and grabs a cup. And the thing. The reason why I bring that in there is because these are the experiences people have with salespeople.

That's true.

And they wonder why, you know, agents wonder why people are so hesitant to meet with us. There's a lot of weird people that go before us. You have water softener people, you have the solar people. You have. I mean, we just had our ducks clean and not ducks. Duck tuck.

Duck.

Duck tucked. And, you know, they're $99 per unit. We have three units. And so he comes in, he goes, oh, you guys got mold? You have mold in there? And I said, send me the pictures. And I'm like, that's not mold. I said, if it was mold, what would that cost? Oh, $395 per unit. But if you get this UV filter on each of them, that's $599 per unit. I'm sitting there going, this is why you want me to go out? You want to come out there for the $99 unit, and you're going to guarantee to upsell me. And this is why people have that stereotype. Oh, yeah, I know. That's not pertaining the fourth quarter. This is just a freebie here. So you got to remember why people are hesitant.

It's true.

So when you tell them, if they're saying, hey, I got to do Christmas shopping, we have Christmas parties, whatever it is, we have family coming over. This only takes 35 to 40 minutes. And I. You can time me. If it goes over 40 minutes, you can kick me out.

Right.

Unless, of course, you have questions. So. Wow, that was interesting. Your phone went off while we're doing a podcast. I know.

You'Re the guy in church that interrupts, so. But anyway. So, yeah, I think people are more likely to spend more, but when you tell them it's only going to take this amount of time, then be sure.

Yeah. Honor your word now. Okay. There's. There's a couple of things I want to get back to the fourth quarter about.1 is why. Why is it historically better for you? Is you're meeting with fewer people. People generally. But again, you say that the people you do meet with are generally more serious about doing something. So you're dealing with increased closing rates, perhaps, and probably lower case size, larger case size. So it's, it's just an. It's a more efficient time of the year to do business.

I did 5 million, I think, in December.

Yeah.

Which, as you can imagine, that's a great way to wrap up the year. I'm still behind, I think, last year, but I've had weird cases this year. Everybody knows this. I mean, I've talked to so many agents. When this market keeps doing what it's doing right now, and we have the pandemic, I still have people that will not meet with me because just wait until this whole thing.

And we're still. And we're in Texas.

Yeah, we're Texas. We're in one of the most open states in the entire United States. So it's been weird. But, you know, hopefully we have some sort of volatility in the market. And am I wishing for volatility? Absolutely. The reason why is because I believe this market is so over inflated, it's not even funny.

Yeah.

But if that happens in the fourth quarter, people are going to be more motivated.

Oh, absolutely.

So, you know, inevitably, it tends to be that way. And like I said, I wish I had an actual reason, but once again, even when I was in the mortgage protection business, the fourth quarter was always even. The guys when I first got into, they said the fourth quarter will generally be at least a third of your year's volume.

And it's. It's been very true. Last year it was not, though. Last year was challenging.

Well, context for last year, though, is it was. This is. We're talking about 2020, in case, you know, five years down the road somebody finds this podcast we're talking about. Last year is 20.

Covet, obviously. So you didn't travel, you didn't take your trips, but you're still working the same way that you do. So by the end of last year, you were basically running on E. That's true.

I was so exhausted by the end of the year. I mean, that's when we really. I mean, the academy's been going on for five years, five and a half years now. We've been doing training agents.

Yeah.

But. And then our imo, we've been doing that, what, not even six, seven months, eight months?

No, we're about a year.

We're about a year.

Yeah, we launched last, last late last spring.

So I mean, same type of. Yeah. And, and I'm telling you it was very tiring. I mean, I have, I run multiple companies at once. Fortunately, I have an incredible team. But that not taking time off the pandemic. I mean. Yeah, I was exhausted by then last year.

Yeah.

I'm hoping then this year is better.

Absolutely. Well, let's talk about fourth quarter etiquette. Agent etiquette.

You're asking me about etiquette?

Right.

That's a. I'm not sure if that's the right person to ask.

All right, let's change the word from etiquette to professionalism. Sure.

Okay. You know, I mean, I can be professional, but.

Well, here's, here's the deal is you've still got leads come in. You've still obviously got marketing and leads expenses, and yet you still have holidays.

Yeah.

So you have people that, they've clearly reached out. They're got questions or concerns about something. But how do you balance being understanding of the fact that it is holiday season and people do generally want to spend more time with their family and take vacations and trips and that kind of thing while also still, you know, handling objections in a way that you still are getting appointments?

Yeah, I remember this balance during hunting season. And Texas hunting season can also be another holiday.

That's true.

Even in Colorado, though, Montana, I mean, any of the Midwest states. I mean, your hunting season is a full holiday season. I know guys that go up from Thursday to every weekend. Yeah, every weekend. Yeah. They're just, that's their thing. But I always say, hey, you know what, Tuesday through Thursday, I run appointments as early as 8am and I run them as late as 7pm there's no excuse not to make something like that work.

Sure.

And you tell clients. Yeah, I do. If it's important to you. I use this story that, man, we were out hunting in Colorado and this was 2007. 2008, I think it was 2008 and we're out hunting in Colorado and this guy wanted to meet with me and said, hey, we're going on a cruise. We'll be back in two weeks. I said, hey, that's fine. I'm going to be gone when you get back. I'm going to still be at the tail end of my hunting trip. So I'LL call you as soon as I get back from my hunting trip. So, like, okay, fine, let's just postpone the meeting. Long story short, we were going to get gas one day and I looked at the gas station. That's when this market had dropped almost a thousand points in one day.

Whoa.

Now, remember, this was when the market was not at 35. I mean, it was much lower.

Huge percentage.

So it was a huge drop. And so I'm sitting there, I'm not worried. I mean, my clients are fine. But I immediately thought about that one guy said, hey, we'll wait till he gets back. Well, I did call him, he did move money, but, man, I said, that was the most expensive vacation you ever went on, wasn't it? He goes, yeah. He goes, I lost $30,000 in that time frame. And, you know, I use that example because, no, it's not a fear thing. It's your money, your decision. But I say, hey, this is what I remember happening at a time. We are, I mean, people forget the beginning of 2020, end of March, April, the market dropped 32 plus percent. And that, I mean, quick, super quick.

Oh, yeah.

Now it rebounded. But I personally believe it rebounded because we just started dumping all this money. There's all sorts of things that started happening. There's payouts going on. I mean, we're, I believe we're in a big mess right now because even though we're going into the fourth quarter, yet people that are now, our unemployment filings last week was horrible. They're going to be horrible this week. I mean, it's just you're going to have people that are not getting their stimulus anymore. You have people that are no longer protected and never should have been, by the way, by the rent protection. Why do I say that? You know, so somebody experiences a hardship and they can't pay their rent. I get that. But that's what savings is for.

Right.

But what about the person who owns the home that has to pay a mortgage, has to pay the bank and they're not getting paid at all?

Right.

And so, you know, all this is coming due right now. So I think we're actually in for a pretty interesting fourth quarter that may be very.

Detrimental, in essence, to what, what the market could do. Sure. Now, can I tell you for sure, not even remotely. I mean, one thing we do know about the market is we don't know anything about. The market goes up and it goes, it does. I mean, so the fourth quarter could be, I mean, it could be the perfect storm where we end up having because. And do not do this. I'm telling you, when the market falls, even though it's in the fourth quarter, do not turn into an order taker. You still do full fact find.

That's a good point.

You still do the incomplete explanation of the product and how it works. Not. You don't just do what they tell you to do. You make sure you're doing what's best for them.

And if you don't have a fact finder, you want the best fact finder out there. We sign up for the academy.

Yeah, we have it. We have it. And I, I'm not saying mine's better than everybody's mind telling you mine's better than everybody.

It's one page. You get all the information, it exposes the holes that the client has. And then when you've got the holes exposed, you can find the product that patches the holes the best.

But you. And obviously on that, you know, there may be a specific circumstance while write notes in another area. Sure. You know, I mean, my fact finders are covered in notes. So when we look at this, remember, fourth quarter is always the best based off of, I believe, bigger client base, people that are more serious. But the market conditions can also be a big factor in that.

Yeah, that's absolutely right. So, yeah, that's a great recap, Chad. Fourth quarter, knock it out of the park. Keep working hard. You know, I had this thought this morning. It's like, you know what? People have been sowing into their business for a long time, and I think that there's been a pretty long season of maybe reduced reaping, so to speak. The harvest has maybe not been as great as a lot of agents were to have wished it would be based on how much they've poured in and sowed into their business. And I'm just hoping and encouraging you keep working hard because the fourth quarter could be that season of harvest for you.

It could. And the one thing that we look at is, you know, some things I would watch out for is the person who's saying, let's wait till after the holidays. Once again, just tell them this doesn't take that long. This would be a horrible thing if the market did drop while you're trying to enjoy your holidays. That could change how you feel about your holidays. I mean, the reality is, if you have a 20% drop during Thanksgiving and Christmas, it's hard to be thankful because a lot of times people are worried about their what, where their money is going. Now the reality is, could it bounce back? Absolutely. Could it go higher? Absolutely. And I do I tell clients that it could go lower, it could go higher. But the one thing I will tell you is we just take a short time to meet to at least get.

Educated on, know what's available and what's out there.

Yeah. And then the week of Thanksgiving, that can be a challenge because you have people trying to get their Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday before they have Thursday, Friday off. But remember, a lot of people don't get that Thursday, Friday off. So they may have Wednesday off, they may have Tuesday off. So don't make any assumptions. Do your same call process the entire time. And remember, we're still in September, October, November. So we're at the very end of September now. October, November, you don't really have any hindrances whatsoever. There should be knockout months. Yeah. And then at the end of November, and then the last three weeks of December is when it can be a little challenging for timing. But remember, if you're doing full fact finders, you're doing the mini fact finder, the phone, you're doing very smooth, very consistent conversations with your clients so they know you're an expert. I mean, if you're stuttering and you're. They're not going to want to meet with you.

Yeah, that's tough.

So make sure you're, you're staying very consistent, smooth. Don't do a whole bunch of butts. Make sure you're a professional. And I'm telling you, fourth quarter will be it.

And you said one thing there. Don't make an assumption that they're not working or that they are. The other thing I would encourage you to do is don't make the assumption that they don't want to meet just because it's the holiday season. If they're a lead or they came through your marketing systems or whatever that is, they've obviously shown interest. They've got some kind of concern, they have some kind of question. So go into those calls assuming they do want to meet even though it's the holiday season, rather than assuming they don't want to meet because it's the holiday season.

Absolutely.

That's great.

That's it. So I hope this helps you guys. You have a great day. And of course, happy selling.

Sam.