Increase Lead Flow Done Right | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 188

Today we are going to talk about best practices for increased lead flow.

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 Agents Account Academy. What is the difference between the two Retirement Realized Financials, where agents are actually writing business under us. Retirement Realized Agents Academy is where you can do all the training you want and we do not require any contracts. Yeah, we're a little different than most. And by the way, if you are an FMO or IMO and you say, hey, you know, I got some agents that want to do some training, we will not become a recruiter. We actually have some partnerships right now. We or they send all their agents to get training with us. And we know that is a no touchy. We do not touch the agents in that area. We do not recruit them. We are. It's very easy to keep it separate. And how is it so easy, Caleb? It's called integrity.

I was going to say honor, but yeah, honor, integrity.

We just keep our word. But if you do not have an FMO that's doing what you need it to do, then of course, reach out to Retirement Realized Financial Caleb North. Then, of course, if you want some extra training, Retirement relies Agents Academy. So let's get into the. Oh, I'm sorry. And this is Caleb. Boy Wonder. Boy Wonder Caleb.

So Boy Wonder has become my middle name.

A boy. I wonder how he's even still alive, man.

It's a good question.

That is a good question. Okay, go.

All right. Well, when the market falls, a lot of times annuity opportunities increase.

I agree with that 100%.

Now, this year has been a little bit weird because we've kind of ridden this lower lead flow wave from last year into the start of this year. And it's been a little bit odd, but I keep thinking like, we're on the brink of it. We've got to be on the brink of increased lead flow.

I actually, last week and this week, it did start to pick up good. So that is a really good thing. And it will continue to get more because here's the reality. People are going to feel the pain more. You know, here's that. There's a. I tell people I'm gonna yawn. I don't know why I was gonna yawn. I know I'm gonna yawn. I work too much. But I also relax a fair amount at least three hours a week. I mean, there you go. But, you know, we don't ever know what's going on in the World.

Right.

I mean, that's, that's a given. I tell people, you know, you could have a nuclear bomb go off and it takes just one crazy cuckoo guy to sit there and take that, set that off. But you never know.

You may not hear.

We used to watch this TV show called Madam Secretary. And it's funny because I would watch that and I know it's a TV show, but the reality is back in the Cuban Missile crisis, you know how close we were to war and nobody knew. Right. You know, it's, it's, to me just a fact. Life is unpredictable.

It is.

But you can also have something crazy happen where we put in $4.7 trillion and all of a sudden the market's going up. That's also not good either. But so you just can't plan things.

Yeah.

And you know, when I'm looking at that, it's how do we handle that when the lead flow increases?

Right.

Well, I think that's kind of what you're talking about, right?

Yeah. So there was a few things that I mapped out and we can talk about these three things and I want to hear your added thoughts to them. But when the lead flow increases, it can be really easy to just start taking what clients say. And the first thing I would recommend is when your lead flow goes up, don't just become an order taker.

Yeah, you can't.

Yeah. Keep doing the process. Well, keep doing fact finders, Keep finding out the purpose of the money. Keep planning from a worst case scenario situation and do the best thing for each and every client, not just what they say. Oh, you know, I've got X amount to invest and I want yada yada yada. It's like do your due diligence to make sure that what you're recommending for them is the best thing for them.

Yeah. Yeah. Because we never want yada yada yada.

You never want yada yada yada yada. Doesn't do anybody any good.

You know, it's so true because when the market starts to fall, you actually get people just saying, hey, I want to move my money. Especially when you have a lot of leads. So I'll show up to the person's house. And this is rare, but it does happen where they have all their statements laid out and they're just like, I want to move my money. Right. And I'll say, you want to move it to what? Well, whatever you're talking about. Well, you don't know what I'm talking about.

Yeah. How do you know you and I.

Still go over every little detail. I go through the fact finder the same. I go through the product information the same. I go over the illustration the same. It doesn't matter to me. I don't care if they have their checkbook out and they are actually, who do I make it out to? I would still say, I'm sorry, I need to explain everything to you. I need to go over the product information. I need to find out your financial situation. I need to make sure you fully, fully understand. And actually, when I have someone that eager, if they don't pay attention during the appointment, I go over even more detail. And then if they still, I act like they act like they don't, then in the application itself, I say, okay, here's your fee.

Right.

Here's the surrender charges. And I make them initial by that to make sure they fully understand what they're getting into. My clients can never say, well, I didn't know what I was getting into. Yeah, no, I went over everything in detail. And like I said, if they're not paying attention, it's even more Right. It's just if you're not gonna do it, I'm just gonna repeat myself again until you say yes. I understand that.

Yeah.

And it's so easy when it gets busy for people to just take that for granted. They just start literally filling out the application. I'm like, what are you doing? That's not the best. You know, you've got to explain everything in detail.

Yeah. I've heard some stories about agents cutting corners, clients not having the information that they probably should have had and coming back to biting the agent in the rear end. If you're going to cut corners, this is not the industry to do it.

I agree. I mean, the reality is I could cut cores corners and know beyond any shadow of a doubt that I've done the best for the client. I mean, I could do it in my sleep. Yeah. But the client is the one that needs to fully understand. Now, when I say fully, they're not going to ever understand in detail the way we understand it. Especially if you've been in the business a really long time. They're just not. You know, it's that analogy that I talk about where the pilot came up to me and he's like, tosses a book my way. And he goes, I'm not letting you do anything. Try know what every little thing in there does. And I said, wow, that's kind of hypocritical. He's like, why? What did you Say. I said, that's hypocritical. I said, I love flying. I love traveling. Not once I've ever went up to the cockpit of the plane and told the pilot, you not flying me anywhere, anywhere till I know what every little button there does.

Right.

I said, what would happen because you'd be kicked off the plane. I said, oh, so I don't need to know every little thing. I said, I need to know two things. Number one, you're a safe pilot. You're 63 years old. You're still alive. You're probably a safe pilot. Number two, how good is your airline? No matter how great of a pilot you are, if a wing falls off, you're not in trouble. So I need to know you're good and your airline's good. That's all it comes down. So mine is, I'm the agent. I'm an expert in this area. I can get you from point A to point B and without turbulence.

Right.

You know, because my plane just goes and it's. Oh, it's nice little sound effects. The planes don't go.

If your plane sounds like meow, you should probably reconsider.

I remember, Todd, this is a side note, but Leilani and I were flying. It's kind of the role I always want to make sure my wife feels. Feels safe. And so we have a four propeller plane. You know, it's the T planes, and we're just taking a short little flight and we're up at the top probably, you know, 28,000ft, and all of a sudden, to the engine shut off.

Oh, wow.

And Leilani goes, is that normal? Is that okay? I'm like, oh, yeah, that's fine. Internally, I'm going, we're going to die. But I did find out that is a normal thing to power down the engine, saves on fuel. But, you know, I just want to know, hey, we're all good, you know.

Yeah.

Look at that ground approaching really quick. No, my kids are going to be so rich. No.

Good insurance.

Yes. Good insurance. Yeah. Side note there, too, is if you don't believe in it, you don't buy it.

Right.

So I actually own all the major annuity products that I've really believed in over the past 17 years. Well, actually, once I turned 40, is when I started to get into it. And I. I own annuities myself. You do.

And that's important because you, you. And I've heard you say this to clients. I. I own this annuity, like this.

One that I'm son owns an annuity. Yeah. When he left his other job, he had a 401k. We rolled it over and I have all the confidence in the world. It wasn't huge, but I have all the confidence in the world. I put him in the right thing. Yeah.

That's so good.

No income rider, but yeah.

Well, I mean, that's an age issue.

Yeah.

Okay, so we talked number one about don't just become an order taker. Right. Do everything right still by the client. The second thing that I want to add to that when you get an increase in lead flow, is create a bunching system for your calendar and your workflow. Okay. And I'll illustrate this with yours.

Okay, Please do. I'd like to see how you explain how I bunch my leads.

You do. So Chad gets leads in and he calls on Mondays, Monday mornings, Monday evenings, that's your call.

Day 9 to 10 and 4:30 to 7:30. Except when lead stinks like they have recently. So I call from 5:30 to 6:30.

Yeah.

Like last week because youe stacks like itty bitty man. I've never had a call time, but I still have 9 million on for the year. Yeah, you're like that.

Your goals, 20 million by June.

By June. Yep.

Yeah. And you're on track for it.

Yep.

So yeah, good luck.

Yeah.

But point is, you call on Monday.

Nothing to do with luck. Blood, sweat and tears. Crying, panting, throat up, passing out and then waking up and start, rinse, repeat.

That's quite a. Quite a visual.

Wow.

Hey, so you've got calls on Monday.

Know that because you have a cushy office job. But anyway, pretty good. But then again, you work for me, so it's not so cushy.

Yeah, that's where the bags come from, Chad. The dark circles in the bags come from. From working with you.

Okay.

You call on Mondays, you run appointments Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. You follow up on pending business and do trainings on Fridays.

Even with the limited amount of lead, I've actually recently run some appointments two times on Mondays and I've run a couple Fridays appointments.

It's because flow for you recently has actually slowed down. Thankfully this past week it started picking.

Down, but the, the actual appointments haven't slowed down. This is where, you know, I mean, we're strong Christians and we believe beyond any shadow of a doubt there is no luck. I mean it's. This is God inomics. There's no explanation to this.

You're off to a better year than you've ever been with fewer leads, amount of leads yeah. Than you've ever had. Yeah. I mean, riddle me. That process is obviously very important, but there's a lot of favor on that.

Yeah, yeah. The riddle is the Bible.

That's the riddle.

That's the riddle that solves it.

Well, there you go.

That's why it's happening.

He answered his own.

No, I didn't. The Bible answered my own.

You so. But if lead flow was vast, you would still. You would stick to your bunching. You would be calling Mondays, you would be running appointments Tuesday, more so.

Yeah, right. Yeah. When it, when there's a lot of leads, I am very deliberate. I'm only making calls from 4:30 to 7:30. I'm only making calls from 9 to 10am on Monday. I am only. I'm trying to also bunch territories as well.

Correct.

So if I hit San Antonio one day, Austin the next day, San Antonio the following day, I try and do that. I mean, there's, there's exceptions to that. The other day I drove over 400 miles and it was. Yeah. And with gas, the price it is right now.

I literally took my knife, opened up my side and I gave them my kidney. So.

And they said, sorry, we're gonna need the other one too.

Yeah, probably. But the purpose of bunching is that it creates increased efficiency.

You have to be efficient. There's no doubt about it.

When lead flow is up, you've got to make the most of your time. Yeah.

And organize. You need to make sure your leads are okay. For example, I have my leads that are zero to two months old. Then I have the leads I've already met with that are asking me to call them back or I wasn't able to get an appointment right then.

Right.

And then if somebody says, hey, you know what, I'm just not ready. Call me in six months. I have a little file system where I have the months and if it's in January, I put it right in the July slot to call them then. Yeah. Which reminds me, I need to check and see if I have any.

March, you should be a happy surprise if you go in there and there's a nice big fat stack.

That'd be nice. Especially when you're waiting for someone to turn 59 and a half.

Oh yeah, yeah. That's a good one. The third one that I was going to add to this is keep track of how your time is spent for future tweaks. What I mean by that is when you're making calls, keep track of how many leads you're calling. How many people did you get in contact with. But here's the key to how much time did you spend? I mean, if you talk with, you know, six people on a. On a Monday and. But you spent four hours on the phone. You're spending way too much time per person on the phone. And you can recognize, you can, because you're keeping track of your time now. You can think through. Okay, you know what? I need to make my phone process more efficient.

And that's where you get to point where I don't have to do that anymore. Right. I mean, God, if you ever thought about how many calls I've made in the past 18 years.

Thousand.

Thousands.

Thousands. Thousands.

I mean, it's white because normal day is 100 calls. So I mean, you just take that times 52 weeks, times 10. So that's into a hundred. Times two is over 10,000. I mean, easily. Yeah, over 10,000 calls and 20 years.

Oh, I would say way more than that.

Like, because that's only including Mondays.

Right? Yeah, we have.

We.

I know an agent that made over 9,000 calls last year.

How much volume did they write?

A couple million.

Okay.

But they were using, they were using all old leads.

Who you're talking about?

Yes. That is all like age leads. 3, 4, 5, 6 year old leads.

Which you're gonna have to call a lot.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's. It's 200 calls a week plus.

Oh, easy. Yeah.

But stewarding the opportunity really well. And still writing business.

He's.

He's closed business from leads that five, six years old.

Yes.

And.

And that's phenomenal because you can't tell me, you know, a dead lead literally means the person's dead. That's a, That's a dead lead. Because the reality is four years ago.

Yeah.

Their. Their situation could be they could have been 62 years old. Now they're 66, and they're like, hey, you know what? I. I totally forgot about you. But yeah, it's important to me now. It wasn't then, but now it's important to me.

Right.

So. Yeah, I don't see why you'd stop calling.

I literally had an agent tell me. He sent me a picture of a lead form he had got in, sent me a picture of the obituary, and it was literally like a week after he got the lead, he saw in the obituary that that person had died.

Yeah, that's when you need to stop calling.

That's.

That's, that's it.

That's.

Just stop.

That's a whole new meaning.

No obituary chasing.

Yeah.

You know what the crazy thing is? I heard there's this. People that do funeral type things, they actually read the obituaries and that's how they get their leads. I'm like, that is just slimy. You know, like for Windows or whatever it is, you know, they. They know it's a widow and what. Yeah, that's crazy. I, there's, there's parts of the sales industry. I just want to stick a fork in their finger because it's just horrible.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

On a happy note.

On a happy note. Leads increase. And I believe we're on the brink of increased lead flow across the board. With the market supports it right now being down the way it is, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't see leads increase.

I would agree with that completely.

Don't become an order taker.

Yep.

Create a bunching system for your tasks, your workflow, and keep track of how your time is spent so that you can tweak that process as needed because become more efficient.

You know, it'd be really good right now. A Chick Fil A sandwich with a little bit of mayo in it, some Tabasco sauce and some waffle fries. You just said order taker. That's really. I'm so hungry right now.

You're ready to eat?

Yeah, I am ready to eat. I won't be able to, but what.

I want to understand is why you're putting mayo and Tabasco on your Chick Fil A chicken sandwich instead of Chick Fil A sauce.

So good. Well, too much sugar. Oh, Chick Fil A. It's literally liquid sugar. Yeah, but you know, it's funny, you look at someone like Chick Fil A though, they have mastered the order taking.

Yeah.

If, if the federal government would take notes from Amazon and for a mailing system and Chick Fil A from processes and procedure at the dmv, Chick Fil.

A's are going to close down during the voting process and you're going to vote through a Chick Fil A line and you're going to to get through quicker than anybody else.

If you could vote and handle all your DMV stuff like a Chick Fil A drive thru, how amazing would that be? And if the United States Postal Service was as efficient as Amazon.

That's so true. Okay, well, we'll leave you guys on that. As you know, we do get a little sidetracked, but I've had so many people tell us it's real because it's not the staged. Hi, Caleb. How are you doing today? Well, gee, I'm doing great. Let's talk about index strategies today. Yeah, we don't do that. That. Okay, guys, have a great day. And, of course, happy selling.