Humble Beginnings & Industry Insights

Welcome to the first ever episode. Number one, First One Annuity Fun Guys podcast. Here we are, a couple of dudes, Crazy Josh, that. Okay, Tuesday or Wednesday this week we're having random conversation. I don't know how in the world it comes up, but I just kind of randomly flippantly toss out the idea of what if we had a podcast called the Annuity Fun Guys and our logo was a mushroom and we just talk about the week and then you kind of pause and you go.

But actually what if?

Because for me, man, I'm thinking like constantly, how do we bring more value and like, how do we actually just get connected to agents in the industry? You know, so it kind of felt like a no brainer because so much of the stuff that we do on just a daily basis can, I don't know, it can feel, you know, a little bit more high pressure, a little more like we're doing the thing as executives in this industry and it, it's one of those things where to like, have an outlet where we can just sit here and have a glass of whiskey and, you know, cheers. I mean, that's our thing, right? Let's cheers to the wins. Let's cheers to the, you know, to the funny stories and all the stuff that we do in between. Yeah, especially your mistakes.

Yeah, well, there's plenty of them to.

Laugh at, so there's no shortage on that.

But what I love about it is the. Designed for those of you that are listening, this is designed to just kind of be a. An enjoyable. I described it to Josh as the Friday Driving Home from Work podcast, where there's obviously going to still be some inherently valuable nuggets from our week working with agents and clients across the country. But it's also designed to be light hearted and just fun and laugh and tell stories. And so some weeks may have inherently more value than others and other weeks may just be a bunch of cutting up and telling jokes and stories and whatnot. But this kind of a mental decompression for us and hopefully it's a mental decompression for the listeners as well. So that's kind of the heartbeat behind it. But yeah, it was wild to me that literally on Tuesday or Wednesday this week we're talking about it, and then here we are Friday and we're recording episode number one.

I mean, literally two or three days.

Later you had the.

I'll say this, Caleb, that's kind of us in a nutshell though, right? It's like, get an idea. And typically, I mean, we, we act Pretty quickly. So I'd say like it's not that surprising but at the same time, yeah, it's a little bit surprising because usually you're my brakes. So.

Well, one of my stories, the fact.

That you were the one that brought it up for me is like, wow.

Great, here we go. Yeah, because usually I'm. Usually with you and Jed, I'm the breaks. Exactly.

Usually I'm the one like whoa, wait a second guys. Like we got all this other stuff going on, we got timelines here and you and Chad are in yalls visionary world of just big ideas and dreams and the. They're all great. But yeah, it's interesting that this was kind of a. I honestly didn't think it was actually happen. I just meant it as a joke and then you took me serious and here we are and then I'm here.

Today setting up the studio and being like, alright man, let's go, let's do it.

Yeah. I do have one qualm with it though. The one qualm that I've got with it is the angle of the cameras. So for those of you that are not watching on YouTube, if you were.

To go to YouTube, you would see the angle of these cameras and you would see that I've got essentially the.

Jawline of an earthworm.

That's one of my one qualms. But we'll make do.

I'm just going to let that one sit for a second.

Just let it marinate for a minute.

Okay, but here's a funny one. Or anybody that's listened to the Seven Figure Annuity sales podcast. Chad is, you know, one of his kind of mockups of his person. His, his image and likeness is on the, the branding of that. And I just found it interesting that I'm kind of the, the co host on the Seven Figure Annuity Sales podcast. And here I am with you kind of co hosting the annuity fund guys. And now we've got a mock up.

Of you on the COVID of this podcast.

You mean the mushroom?

The mushroom guy, yeah.

Great hat.

Which by the way, props to you.

If you can figure out why we branded it with a mushroom. Because I was showing some friends this week the mock up of the podcast, like logo and emblem and everything. And they didn't get it. They were like why, why, why the mushroom? And I'm like, it's the annuity fun guys. And they're like what? And I was like, the annuity fun guys. Annuity fun guy. Fun guy.

And it's like I had to say it like three or four times, and they finally picked up on.

My wife thought it was funny. So that's usually my. My barometer on if something should actually go through or not is if she laughs at it. But she laughs at my stuff pretty easily, though, so maybe that's not the greatest barometer.

You can tell when Marissa's been laughing at Josh's stuff because he's got a.

Extra pep in his step. Yeah, right.

His chest kind of a little bit. Carries a chest a little bit higher when he walks around.

You were talking about going fast, though, and just, I mean, all gas, no brakes to use. Your alma mater head coach, that's the.

Longhorns for those of you football fans out there.

Steve Sarkeesian says it all. Gas, no brakes, but it was funny. I was talking with an agent actually today. She was a lady that signed up for our pro training and Retirement Realized Agents Academy a while ago and then upgraded to our new and improved Annuity Architects program. And after she upgraded, she starts going through it, and she was like, oh, my gosh, like, there's. There's a lot in here. And there is. And she emailed me and she goes, caleb, I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew here. Got a little bit ahead of myself on this and probably need to talk to you about trying to cancel my membership and get a refund or something. I said, okay, well, you know, before we go there, let's. Let me just get on a zoom and give you a walkthrough of the program, show you how to navigate it, how to use it, get practical value out of it, because she was having some navigation issues. And so I get on a zoom, and this was actually today I get on a zoom with her, and I'm just talking to her, and she goes, yeah, you know, I got a lot of debt built up right now. You know, I don't really have leads. I don't have money for leads. I've never sold an annuity. I've historically only sold, like, life and health insurance, and that's mostly dried up. I've actually got a salary job right now. And I'm like, whoa, okay. So this is like a whole different type of scenario than somebody that's an agent in the industry that's learning from the program and everything. So we start talking through it, and she is realistically months and months away from actually being able to meet with clients and doesn't even have the capital to invest into marketing to do it. And so I told her, I said, you Know what? I'm just gonna, I'm gonna prorate you a refund because I'm like you, I like to go fast. I like to get, you know, I get ahead of myself and I understand, you know, where you're coming from on that. And so I prorated her a refund for, for the program and everything. And she's gonna go work her normal salary job. And it was amazing to hear what she responded with in that though. Cause she told me, she looked me dead in the eyes on the zoom and she said, caleb, we need more people like you in this industry. And it's heartbreaking to me to think that doing that, which is to me just, that's just the right thing to do for somebody, is like something that stands out to her as somebody that's been an agent in the industry, not even on the annuity side specifically, but in the past. And so, I don't know, it's just, it was encouraging one to hear that, that it's like, recognized, but then simultaneously a little bit of like, sad to me that that's not just normal operating procedure for companies and IMOs and agencies and all that equ. Across the industry. So I don't know. That was, that was one of my stories from this week that was encouraging, but also a little bit. Oh, man.

You know, a bit disheartening.

Yeah.

At the same time, though, I mean, and we've talked about, for this podcast, like, we want this podcast to be something that, like, agents leave this feeling full of hope.

Totally.

Because so often, especially in, you know, the realm of, you know, regulations and all that stuff change, there's just a lot of uncertainty often for agents, so they tend to kind of dwell in like, the negatives.

Yeah.

And so, you know, I think ultimately in those scenarios, it like, shows an opportunity to be different.

Yeah.

You know. Cause if, if people are constantly in this, in this world where they're like, just trying to take, take, take, take, take, take, and not really be willing to, to give or like actually just realize that sometimes people bite off more than they can chew.

It's real.

Sometimes agents take longer than you would think to, to get good at selling annuities or positioning whatever other lines that they're actually, you know, working within. And I think if we can shift that lens right to where it's, it's hope filled, because there's always a solution. There's always something that can be improved upon. And I think when that focus actually becomes that, that's where you start to really see, you know, Shift in the industry.

Yeah, I agree.

We just went. We just went deep pretty quickly.

We did.

From mushrooms to.

Well. And I mean it as a hopeful thing. When I tell that story, I'm going to look up a post that you made earlier this week and share that real quick. But when I share that story, I do mean it as a hopeful thing, and hopeful in the sense that so many of the agents that we work with do run their business with ethics and integrity, and they treat their clients right and they're operating with the highest threshold of ethics.

Integrity.

I mean, the same words we always use to describe it. And so I mean it as an encouragement in the sense that if you're doing that, as so many of our agents are, there is inherently going to be an element of standout because there are agents that are not. There are IMOs that are not. And so it's like just choosing to do the right thing. It just, it does for some reason somehow, and it's. It's disheartening that it's the truth, but it is the truth. It creates a distinction amongst other professionals that may be in your same line of work.

Right, right.

You made a post earlier this week that I wanted to share just about doing the right thing, if I can find it.

I think on that. I mean, I saw a couple LinkedIn post floating around this week talking about, you know, people doing what they would consider to be the right thing. And it's funny because sometimes we get this perception that, like, the ethics, it's, it's. It can change based on the organization or the entity. When ultimately, like I would argue that there's, there's a general standard of ethical practice. Sure, right. Like there's a right thing that typically can be done and there's a wrong thing that typically can be done. And I think often when the, when the internal, like within an organization, when that actually gets prioritized over the actual, like, right thing to do.

Right, right.

That's where you start to see these weird skews and, like, people doing their own things and, you know, moral dilemmas and all that kind of stuff within the industry. It's like we would just operate on like a normal human being, moral compass of. I mean, it's the golden rule, right? Do, do unto others what they. What you would want them to do to you. It's something that most of us have been taught since we were children. And if we just operated like that, then we would actually see that and we could have huge impact positively in the industry.

Totally, totally. Yeah. And I found your, your post and you were basically shouting out those individuals that do choose to operate with ethics and integrity because yeah, for us it feels like, it feels like standard operating procedure, but it's often not sure. You know, for me, as somebody, that faith filled guy, I try to ask myself the question of, in any situation I look at it and I think there are a hundred thousands of different ways that you can respond, you can react, you can handle the situation. Right? There's no shortage of ways that you can do that. But the thing that I constantly try to remind myself is that there's only one way that Jesus would respond. And so for me that's like kind of a guiding compass. It's like in this situation that's in front of me right now of all the options that I have on the table, what's the way that I believe Jesus would respond in this? And so you take the example of that agent from earlier, you know, on the call, I chose the path that ultimately nets the company less revenue.

In turn, that's me, less revenue, you know, income potentially, you know, as a partner of retirement realized and, but it was seemed like the right thing to do. It felt like that was the way that Jesus would handle that situation. And so again, regardless of kind of where you find yourself aligned, faith or non or you know, whatever, it's kind of regardless.

And I'll even say like, I mean we tend to, you know, we are all faith based people right here at retirement realized and like our, our partner team, that's just a huge, a huge value for all of us. But we work with tons of people who aren't right. So for us that's never like a, you know, a line in the sand that we draw where we feel like we can't now work with somebody because they're not aligned in that way. I think that is the, that's the ethical compass as well. Right? It's like when you isolate people that aren't aligned with you or that aren't in a similar, you know, walk of life as you, that's, that's literally the epitome of it. Right, Yeah, I interject that real quick.

No, I agree. And so you're, you're absolutely right. It's a, it's a point of foundation for us. But I would encourage, you know, anybody listening, regardless of where they would find themselves aligned is like, what is that, what is that compass to you? That's kind of that guiding that guidepost, so to speak, that you're assessing your daily operations against for me, it's that question of in any given situation that I'm presented with, there's all these different options of ways they can handle it. But what's the one way that Jesus would respond? Because if he was in my shoes, there would only be one way that he would respond. Sure. It's just, there's. That's what he would do. It's not. And so anyways, that's kind of my.

My barometer there. But yeah, man. Well, going deep on week one, what's a lighthearted story from the week?

That's something light hearted from the week.

You know, I think for me it's, it's really easy to get caught up in the stuff that we do. Right. And so for, for my role, I operate, obviously, you know, but I'll tell the people, I'll just look at you. But I operate, you know, as, as the president of our organization and our, all of our initiatives that we have here. So for, for us, it's like, it's real easy to get bogged down in all the stuff. There's always details that have to be paid attention to. There's always, you know, people that I have to keep in line.

It's true.

But, but for real though, it's, it's easy to get caught up in the stuff.

Yeah, right.

And to lose sight of, of why we're doing it. And ultimately, like, we got in this business to help people. I think I can speak for you as well.

Totally.

I, I will. You can interject if I'm slightly off.

Right. I'm right.

Before you even know what I say. Yeah, but you came into this business as a ranch hand.

Yeah.

Right. So like, you had no experience doing any of this stuff. I came into this business, you know, having a business background in college, you were in business school when you, when you came in.

But simultaneously, like I was a musician, like I was teaching for a school district, you know, percussion. Right. Teaching for a few middle schools and a high school. And so, so us getting aligned into, into this thing, it was, it was totally, you know, it was totally something that we wouldn't have probably ordained for ourselves to do. But we get into this thing and suddenly we're figuring out all these, you know, new concepts and new things and there's always something to learn, there's always a new skill to develop, and it's real easy to get caught in that. So for me, like this week, I felt such a lightness and even talking about this podcast, I think that's one of the things for me is it. It just brought such a, a humanity back into the business. Not that it's not there.

Right.

We're very much personable people that enjoy each other and enjoy having fun and enjoy the work that we do. But we didn't get into this business because we love annuities.

Right, Right.

It's true. Like we didn't even know what annuities were when we got into this business.

Right.

You know, we knew what the specific thing was kind of that we were setting out to do. So for us, it's been, you know, huge learning curve as quickly as possible and just, you know, working really, really, really hard, you know, putting in long hours, staying up super late, studying products, studying strategies, studying business principles, all these different kinds of things in order to get to the place that we're at now. So even for, for agents that are listening to this, one of the hope filled things is like we're. Regardless of where you are, regardless of the background.

Right.

That you're coming from, there is so much hope for you to actually succeed in this business.

Right.

Because if a ranch hand like Caleb can do it, then anybody can do it.

It's so true, man.

We joke, we joke about Chad too. You could say the joke about Chad with his education so that I don't have to.

If Chad who.

This is his. These are his words.

These are my words.

These are Chad's words.

Well, that's true.

He would back it up for sure.

But if Chad, who graduated from high school on Hawaii Maui and has no college degree, can produce 20, 25, $30 million a year in annuity premium, then anybody can.

Yeah, it's the right systems, the right processes, everything in between. So it is. So for me, that was a huge win this week, was just, you know, feeling this lightness come into the business. And I know for me, I really started stepping up like creating content because there's so much, you know, inside that I'm doing within our organization and, and it's easy to kind of just keep that within the walls of, of what we do.

Right.

But ultimately for us it's like, well, we're not concerned about, you know, this competition element between us and other organizations and people that even do similar types of things. Like there's, there's no sense of competition. Even though maybe we'll lose out on dollars to people sometimes and maybe vice versa, they'll lose out on dollars to us. But ultimately if we're all doing something that's better in the industry, well then the industry is getting better. Which means that there's probably going to be a higher likelihood that more people are now actually open to what we do. Which means that there's more funds available for all of us to actually participate in.

I agree.

So it's one of those things where, you know, in these moments where we can kind of be re energized in what we're doing, it releases so much momentum and I've just felt that momentum bubbling up.

Right. Well. And I'll. I'll share just my own journey and story on that note of getting out what's inside of you. Right when I first started, okay. And this was for those of you that don't know. My day one was like August 20th, I think, of 2019. Okay. So that gives you context for how long I've been in the industry. Not very long. But when you have good mentorship, you're a self starter. Like for me, I just like, I don't like waiting around on other people, so I'll just go figure it out. The number of hours that I've spent on the phone with carriers, asking questions, learning product, asking wholesalers, different types of strategies, the number of hours that I've spent online reading and watching videos and all that kind of thing, it, it injected me with so much information that then as it was retained, became knowledge. And some of it was not retained.

Some of it was definitely lost or.

You can't retain everything. But then it became knowledge and then it became this thing where it's like, yes, I want to get this out and I love it. Like for me, getting to interact and talk with agents about product and case design and all that kind of thing, it is an absolute blast. And I'll have conversations, and I say this with humility, but I'll have conversations with guys that have been in the industry for 25 or 30 years and explain something conceptually to them. And it's like, it's almost revelatory. And that for me, as somebody that's been in the industry for going on five years now, is just, it's like, wow. So you can start to see the impact that you're having. Even if you're a young guy or a young lady and you're just barely starting out, put in as much as you can and then retain as much as you can so that it becomes knowledge. And then when that knowledge is there, you will want to get that out. And I'm telling you, it feels so stinking good to get it out. And I know for you on the business side, like, I Mean, guys, to give you context, what we do at retirement realized is largely Josh's brainchild. Like, none of us would be here at retirement realize that Josh not had a vision for what Chad's training could have been back in 2018.

And it make me tear up over here, dude.

It's crazy. But, but seriously, like, the business mind and like, the ability to create a brand and all those types of things, like, you've, you've learned and you've grown and you've cultivated so much that you have so much inside that I would imagine. Yeah. Starting your, Your, you know, content that you're Putting out on LinkedIn, starting this with me, like, I imagine it feels pretty good, but I can also say, like, I know it feels pretty good because I've gotten to have that in a different vein, in a different lane of what we're doing with agents for a while now. And it is. It's an honor, truly.

Yeah, likewise. Likewise. And I, I mean, Chad will say this, and he says this often. We, we reference Chad. So for those of you who don't, who, who aren't super familiar with us, Chad obviously is one of our mentors. We work with him directly. You know, he and I are constantly strategizing on things. He and Caleb are constantly training together within our, our training. And by the way, this isn't a pitch for anything that we do. We're going to reference some of these things that we work on at times because it's our world. But ultimately, like, once again, there, we're not trying to, you know, push any kind of thing. This is just conversation about life in the business. So. But, but ultimately, like, working with somebody like Chad, you know, who is very determined, who's very successful, I mean, I've seen, you know, for both myself, for you, I've just seen us, like, be able to thrive in this industry by being, you know, close to someone who's had high, high levels of success.

Totally.

And specifically for you, man, I mean, Chad talks about you being one of the best marketers that he's ever encountered in this business, and he's worked with people that have, you know, dealt with on an annual basis, you know, 2 to 2 to 350 million a year. Right. Just under their, their specific hierarchy. So, like, as an individual marketer, not like an agency. Right, right. So it's like, to be put in that same caliber as we're launching all the things that we're launching, it's. It's a testament to what you've studied, what you've learned how you've been so humble in the process and even just an encouragement to agents that is why agents are attracted to people like you in this business is because there's something about the humility. So even, you know, if you're an agent listening to this right now, be humble. Yeah, right. It's one of the biggest things for me. Like, we formed partnerships before because of humility.

It's true. Big partnerships.

Yeah. We've had like business altering partnerships that, you know, as Chad and I are in conversation, it's. It's been our humility that has led to the solidification or the solidification. Solidifying.

Solidification.

Losing my words. Yeah, solidification. I'm processing if that's a word in my head at the same time. But the solidifying of those partnerships has been because of the humility that we've brought to those conversations and our willingness to give before we ask.

Yeah.

And so often as agents, you know, the. What we pretty regularly see is this desire to, like, gain.

Right.

So how can I milk this FMO that I'm with for as much as I can, or how can I get as much free stuff as I can? And in reality, and I saw people commenting about, like, agents not being willing to invest in themselves, they just want everything handed to them. And ultimately, like, that's a losing attitude. And if you think about the fact that 90 plus percent of agents fail in the first five years, like, that is a huge reason why.

Right.

So when, when an agent comes into this business with humility, they come into this business with an eagerness to better themselves with the, the desire to do something of value and bring value to both their customers and other agents that they're interacting with. Well, suddenly, you see those agents start to elevate pretty quickly.

It's true.

Yeah.

I like to say that an arrogant mental. It's really tough to learn with an arrogant mentality. Like, arrogance is one of the greatest killers of learning. And, And I say that.

Having experienced it firsthand. Like, I, I want to say that I'm humble. Right. And I think that there's. I think that I am most of the time. When I was younger, I really dealt with some arrogance, like big time. Like, being honest, like pride was, was real. I mean, I. Life has since changed.

Well, I could get into my testimony sometime if, if need be. But life, like Jesus changed my life. But I seriously did. I dealt with a lot of arrogance and a lot of pride. And I tell you, I learned very, very, very little as a young man. But since that kind of shift and actually tapping into and wanting to be humble. Not just like, not this, not this false.

Some people are just not very confident naturally. And it can come across as humility. And it's not actual humility. It's like humility is the ability. Humility is the ability to like.

Almost make yourself. It's not lacking confidence, but it's not, it's not putting yourself out there as.

The end all, be all.

Yeah. The, you know, the hottest thing, the greatest thing since slice. It's like you can carry confidence and humility at the same time.

Right.

And it's one of those things it's like, it's hard to put words to. Right. But when you see confidence, you know confidence. When you see arrogance, you know arrogance and you can acknowledge like there's a fine line, but. But it's distinguishable when you experience it. And so, yeah, I would say, man, you want to learn and you want to learn fast and you want to learn big. Recognize like you don't know it.

Yeah.

And that's a constant thing. I try and tell myself you don't know it.

Right.

Like I'm, I. Relative to a lot of agents that I work with and what behind the years, time wise in the industry.

Yeah. There are things I'll share with agents and it'll be, you know, wow, you know, 25, 30. I had one of those this week with a guy talking about income and positioning, income annuities with clients. And we were talking about the difference between interest rate of return and internal rate of return and how you can use that conversation around your income positioning. And for him, you know, quarter of a century in the industry is like, whoa, that's wild. Right? You can't take that success and let that success create an arrogance in the next conversation. Otherwise there will be things in the next conversation that you could learn from that you'll never get. So, yeah, humility is huge. Yeah, yeah, humility is huge. And I'll say, Josh, just we're kind of ping ponging these compliments back and forth and I didn't intend for it to be that. But in all truthfulness, you're one of the most humble leaders I've ever seen. Like, like, seriously, when you look at humble leadership, servant leadership, like, you carry that in spades. I appreciate that. So I, well, I appreciate that.

I've had to work on that a lot too. And my wife done numbers on me for that as well.

It's largely why for those of you, if you follow us on LinkedIn or whatever.

If I repost anything of Josh's, I always hashtag El jefe te amo and.

It means the boss that I love.

And so that's my nickname for Josh. If you have.

Cheers to that is my nickname for Josh.

If you haven't heard it, el jefe te amo.

Anyways, well, hey, do you have any funny stories from this week? Anything?

Funny stories?

Hmm.

Maybe funny is not the right word. Let's say anything that was like a funny experience or like, man, I didn't see that coming. Or like, I can't believe that this agent asked me this question.

Not like it was a dumb question. That's not what I mean. But I mean more so like anything off the cuff that you, that you've encountered this week, that was a little bit off the rails this week.

I can't really think of anything.

You know, the weeks, my weeks as a marketer, case designer, you know, what we call agent development specialist. That's what retirement realized financial calls our marketers. No week is ever the same. And some weeks are just case design out the wazoo, you know, and you're just constantly, it seems, doing case design for agents. And then other weeks it's a lot of recruiting calls. And then other weeks it's, you know, it might be something completely different. Checking on, you know, status, Igo status to sell, you know, in a particular state for, for an agent or something like that. This week was very, very heavy with demo calls for our, for our software agency marketing suite. And I didn't really notice, I think because it was so heavy with those demo calls. I didn't really notice anything, you know, strange or off.

I'll say one thing.

Yeah.

That I actually, this is a story that I wanted to bring up. We encountered something and this BMW up on LinkedIn this last week. So I feel like it's a little bit relevant to talk about. It's the, the IMO, FMO role. And I made another post on LinkedIn about this, right. Some red flags with, with IMO's and FMOs. You know, one of them being if they're trying to bring you in with just like crazy amounts of comp with nothing in return. Like you're, you've probably already, you know, gotten everything that you're going to receive from that individual fmo, right? If they're just throwing the farm at you as far as comp goes. But the second thing that I referenced was these crazy agreements where they just lock you in and they throw away the key and they don't even know where the key is, but it's just such a slimy thing to do. And we encountered one of these, and I laugh because it's almost comical. And I don't want you to say any names like, you'll find we're not going to. We're not going to blast anybody like that, but we're going to talk more about, like, conceptual things. Right. So talk about this concept, because for agents that are listening to this podcast, it is imperative. And I, once again, I laugh at that because it seems obvious, but I don't. I don't think agents actually realize sometimes that they get into these agreements that suddenly their business is just, like, locked up right now. From a legal standpoint, a lot of these probably wouldn't hold up in a court of law.

Sure.

But for an agent, especially an agent who is being established and who is. Yeah. Or not, they're not even established yet. Right. But they're trying to establish their foothold in the industry. They're probably not gonna have the funds to go fight something like that in a legal battle with an agency that has way more money than they do. And they're probably willing to do it, or they'll at least try to try to scare you into not doing it, not filing that suit. So share this story that you encountered this week with the. The agency that was trying to hold an agent hostage.

Yes. Okay. I forgot about this story because this would definitely fall under the category of, you asked, was there anything wild and crazy?

You were, man, you gave me a lob and I just dropped it. Okay.

Before I get into the details of this one, I think having shared meaning on standard industry processes and workflows is pretty important. So from a contracting perspective, when you actually go and you're going to get a contract to sell a particular insurance company's products, you're typically going to go through a marketing organization, an imo, an fmo, to do it. Right. We know that the thing is that those marketing organizations have essentially two different ways that they can categorize an agent's contract. It can be an individual contract where that agent is independent of the imo. They're just kind of working through the imo. The IMO at that point is just essentially the bridge, the connection between that agent and the insurance company. And then there's an alternative called licensed only. And some call them LOP, licensed only professionals. LOA's licensed only agents. And the difference between LOA and independent is that loa, all of your commissions go to the upline that you're LOA to I was working with an agent this week who got contracted with this particular marketing organization as an LOA agent to them. So that upline, that agency, imo, whatever you want to call them, they own all of the agents commissions and then they create an internal agreement with that agent to determine comp and all these other kind of regulating rules that that business relationship entails. They also own all of the agent's clients, all of the policies. So that agent as an LOA is considered a, a servicing agent, but not the agent of record. The agent of record is going to be the upline. They get paid all the commissions, they own the contracts. In essence, that agent decides they want to partner with Retirement Realized Financial. They want to move those contracts totally fine. I mean that's part of that's an industry norm. Agents, agents transition IMO's periodically. We encourage you find a good one and go deep with them. Stick it out for the long haul. It can take some time to find that. Right. So there's transition in that process.

We have to then work with the insurance companies to get those contracts moved over to Retirement Realized Financial. Well, this agent was working on a case with a client for a particular insurance company that they had a contract with that was LOA through that other group. Okay. But they had recently sold a policy with that insurance company. Now most insurance companies, you've got a six month wait period. If you issue a policy on June 1, you're probably not going to be able to transfer that insurance company's contract without a release from the upline. You sold that through for a six month period. This particular agent signed an agreement with this upline, this imo, that for a period of six months following the termination of that agreement that they would not be able to write business with any of these other carriers. So we're working with this insurance company trying to get this agent's contract moved over. They say we need a release or the agent needs to wait six months of non producing, you know, with that particular carrier.

Yeah.

Carrier. Well that carrier happens to have some of the most competitive indexed annuity products on the market right now. So it opens a whole can of worms around doing what's best for your clients. Because if the agent just doesn't just stop selling that carrier for a period of six months, you can make arguments for a lot of those clients that they would be selling over that period that they didn't sell what was in those clients best interest because they're not selling this particular carrier. On the flip side, they need A release to not have to wait that six month period. The IMO that they were formerly with won't sign the release. Not only that, but the IMO that they were with that won't sign the release also told the agent that if they were to sell one of these insurance companies that they held previous contracts with under them, that they would retain all of the commissions for the policies sold and distribute none of those to the agent. Because for the agent to receive any commissions, they had to have this internal agreement with that agency established. That agency determined, just canned that whole agreement when the agent told them that they wanted to transfer IMO's. So it literally put this agent between a rock and a hard place where if they don't sell this particular company to their clients for the next six months, you can make an argument that they're not doing what's in their client's best interest for a lot of cases. And if they do, it just perpetuates this six month wait period, this cycle, because that IMO will not sign the release. And so I'm working with the insurance company and the agent and some evidence to try and get this insurance company to actually release that agent's contract as an exception to their standard six month wait rule without a release. And we're making progress, but it's nothing, nothing set yet.

Well, and the thing that I wanted to say about that was just going back to our initial conversation, right. It's like, what are, how are you structuring your business operations? Yeah. And as an agent listening to this podcast, like, how are you structuring your alliances in the industry? Because there's a lot of, there's a lot of companies. This agent who we're talking about here, great agent.

Yeah, like great producer, been around in the industry for a long time.

Yeah, he's been, he's got a lot of experience. There's a clause in a contract that.

Has created this issue. Right. So how do you actually avoid these things prior to them coming along? So I would even encourage anybody listening to this right now, if you're in any kind of similar agreement like that, like go, go read your fine print and your contracts, if you have contracts.

Yeah.

Because your imo, your fmo, whoever you're associated and affiliated with, their job is to serve your business, not to trap your business.

Yeah.

And often that's what we see, right? We see these, all of these, like kind of borderline. And I don't want to be too extreme here, so I'm going to actually retract what I was about to say, but fair enough. But you see these hooks getting put in. Yep. Right there. There are these hooks that are getting put into these agents to actually hold them in essence, captive. When they're independent agents, they're independent producers. But often these, these clauses get slipped into these contracts where they're suddenly, you know, unable to actually do what's in the best interest of the client.

Right.

And who's ultimately responsible for that? Yeah, the agent. Yeah.

And I'll. This is a personal thing. I get rather fired up. You've seen me get pretty, pretty fired up before about some of these things that happen when agents get treated like that.

It really bothers me to have that six month wait period at the carrier level. And I understand that carriers are trying to, they're trying to extend loyalty and preference to the upline that got them the business. Right. So. So if a policy gets issued, the carrier is looking at that policy as well. We probably wouldn't have gotten this policy had that upline not been a part of the picture. So now we're going to not allow that agent to transfer their contract for six months unless that upline releases them.

Right.

The problem that I have with that is then if an agent wants to move their contract.

It'S probably because the IMO they're with hasn't earned that agent's business. And so that six month wait period just perpetuates the agent being stuck with an IMO that had the opportunity to work well with an agent and from my perspective, failed.

Right.

And now they won't sign the release to do it. So it just kind of perpetuates the issue, in my opinion. But yeah, I would say two things for agents to double check after they get contracted, regardless of who the IMO is. Call the insurance company that you're contracted with and ask them, because you're the agent. You can call on all of your information. You can call, you have an open line of communication to all of the insurance companies you are not stuck to, only operating through your imo. Okay. Call the insurance company, their contracting department, and ask them if your contract is an LOA contract, licensed only, or if you are an individual independent contract. And then ask them what the commission level is and they'll tell you, because I've had it before too, where IMOs have told an agent they're at some commission level and then I'm talking with the agent cross referencing the grids and what they're making is not actually at the level that the IMO told them they were. And so verify those two things that you're. If you're, if you're trying to be an LOA agent to an imo, great. But verify it. View should be independent. Verify it. If you're supposed to be at street, verify it. If you're supposed to be above street, verify it. Like, just double check. If the IMO tells you XYZ about your, your contract with a carrier through them, double check that at the carrier level that that's actually how it's structured and you'll save yourself a lot of headaches on the back end.

Yep, Yep. There was one crazy story from this.

That's one crazy story. Not a light hearted story, not a funny story, but the one that is.

Yeah, we've got some funny stories coming, though. I mean, we need to get the details on them before we show them. But I'll just, I'll just put a couple little teasers. I know one in particular that we definitely need to share on. Here was an agent. I won't even say the name yet, but they actually showed up to an appointment face to face at a nudist colony. So we'll share this. We'll share this story coming up in the next few weeks. Also, another agent who, if you ever have an upset stomach during an appointment while you're running a zoom, you can imagine probably what happened in this story. Yeah, we'll tell that story here in the coming weeks as well. But one thing that I want to hear on this podcast, I want agents to submit stories to us because I think one thing, you know, this isn't. It's a pretty isolating industry.

Right.

Often as independent producers, which most agents are, most agents aren't writing LOA to an agency. Right. They're not typically captive as annuity producers. And so it can be a little bit isolating when you're kind of like feeling like you're on this island. And so I think that kind of normalizing some of the things that people experience will be actually a very big breath of fresh air for many agents.

I agree. 100%. I agree. And you know, like we said earlier, our goal is that this would be mental decompression. We don't want this to be cognitively intense for you. We want you to be able to listen to this on the drive home from work on a Friday and enjoy it and feel rejuvenated and hopeful and excited for the coming week of work after the weekend as a result of it. So that's the, that's the goal. That's the intent. I do. I think some funny stories will help do that, so. For sure? For sure.

Well, you got anything else for us today, Caleb?

That's a wrap for me, man.

That's a wrap for me. We are.

Cheers to another great week.

Yep.

Cheers.