Learning from the Highs and Lows of Sales | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 191

Today we're going to talk about the highs and lows from quarter one.

Hey everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode. I am Chad Owen. As you can tell, a little bit harsh on the voice. I've been talking too much, which is usually a problem. You have.

Yeah, but my voice never leaves when I do it.

I know it's always in my head non stop. It's like psychotic type of repetition in my head. And wake up. What? You know, I remember when you started with us, so you had to listen to my courses over and over and over again and you're probably like, oh my gosh, if I hear his voice again, I'm just going to hit myself in the head.

The amount of times that I've been through because we've in the academy, retirement realized agents academy, we've outgrown the platform a couple of times. So we've had training content from like three, three different platforms. The amount of times that I've been through those three individual sets of training is absurd. I've heard Chad's voice for way too many minutes of my life.

Pure wisdom. His entire life. But. But the beautiful thing is, you know, we did determine that he is Robin Boy Wonder because we finally settled it on Boy Wonder.

You determined, but.

Well, because Robin, you know, I'm Batman.

I'm Batman.

I have the money, I have the looks. I can't. Can't say that one without laughing, going off, looks. My wife thinks I have the looks. And you clearly are the guy that wears the green leotard with the yellow underwear and the red shirt or whatever.

I can probably make your day if I did.

No, it wouldn't. So let's get on to the conversation right now.

Highs and lows from Q1. By the way, if you're listening to the podcast, highly recommend you make your way over to the YouTube channel.

Yeah.

Because it's, it's video and the team that edits, they add in some funny things, I think.

Sure.

That makes it a little bit more entertaining.

Yes. Entertaining, yes. Funny matter.

If it depends on here.

Depends who's being made fun of at the time.

Yeah. If it's Jad getting made fun of, it's usually pretty good. If it's me, people start, you know, mourning and sympathizing and all the things.

Okay, do your job.

You are having a record year.

Yes.

Right. So we're talking about highs and lows from Q1. High being you're having a record year, which is amazing. Best. Best quarter one you've ever had. You're over 11 million just in quarter one was like 11 point what, 11.23 or something.

I think I passed 12.

Did you?

Whatever it was, it was a record quarter one.

Because these are pre recorded a little bit. They are giving me a little bit of time. Yeah, I actually think I might pass 13.

Really?

We'll see.

We'll see.

You'll know by the time, you'll know if I did that.

Because at the time of this podcast recording, it's not quite the end of Q1.

Yeah, not quite.

But it is a high from the standpoint of it is still a record quarter one for you. And what's interesting is a lot of repeat clients, a lot of. A lot of clients that were previous clients that now the market's kind of starting to flutter and fall and all the things, they kind of resurface ready to do more.

I mean, all the big deals, I think pretty much all the big deals have all been new clients, so. But yeah, there's a lot of little ones coming out of the woodworks. 100,000 here, 200,000 there, 50,000 there. You know, I count everything. Obviously it all adds up. Yeah, that just goes where. It's so important to have that drip system. You know, we, for our agents and retirement realize financial, we have an actual drip system that they could get. And actually it's in the academy as well.

Yeah, Marketing elite.

Yeah. So you can get the drip system where all of your clients you've had, whether you wrote business or not, you have their email. We just continue to drip on them. And I have clients I've had from five years ago. Yeah, you know that six years. Seven actually. One I'm working on right now is 2006, I think. Yeah. That I had the email from. And you know, people say, well, I don't have enough email addresses. You gotta start somewhere.

Right. You know, start somewhere, start.

If I never would have started. 7, 8, 9, 10 years. Actually longer than that. I think I really started to be deliberate in email addresses around 2010, I would imagine. So once I got to that stage, I mean, it's just been a constant building up. I'm. I think I'm at a little over almost 5200 email now. And that's pretty amazing because you do have a lot of people that unsubscribe.

Yeah.

So clients, I mean, potential clients. I mean, it's got to be over 10,000 at least. I mean, probably way more than that. But you know, because I still, even if I have something and it's an Institution.

Right.

I usually unsubscribe.

Yeah.

So we try and be very, very deliberate in what we're putting in for content.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the idea behind it being, if it's existing clients, Chad, they're being reinforced. Right. Like the purchase decision that they've already made is being reinforced. They're not going to have buyer's remorse, hopefully, if they get into that. Read that.

But it's also the people I couldn't get in touch with, the people I did get in touch with and it just, they weren't ready for it. So you got to start somewhere that's really important. I mean, often people like, wow, it's amazing how much business you do. God, it's been a lot of hard work. Yeah. I mean, even now, right.

I'm, I have years to build an.

Time off for a while and it's just because I'm, I know this is the time.

Right.

I use this example with an agent this morning. I said, when the fish is, when the net is full of fish, that's not the time to stop and take a break, you know. And right now, the nets full of fish.

Yeah.

People that are ready to protect their money.

Yeah, it's true, it's true. And I love the fact that like you say, a lot of the big deals, they're obviously fresh, you know, fresh clients from new for this year. But there's been a, you know, a fair amount of business written from existing clients and a lot of that coming just from you doing a good job in the follow up process after the deal. Right. You get your annual statements, you get your reallocation opportunities, you do a little mini fact finder with them. Find out, okay, they've got this much more money, they want to protect it.

Sure.

Something's new out there that they need or you know, one or whatever. And now all of a sudden you've got a new deal and you've already got existing relations. They understand your expertise. And so there's a whole lot of that process that you spend building up expertise and communicating and teaching that they've already got. They've already been through it. So they know.

Do you know how hard it is to actually pay attention when you're talking?

How hard is it?

I just totally spaced out. I'm like, I'm hearing you talk, but I'm not listening to the words.

That's all right.

But no, it did make sense. Totally. Such words of wisdom right here. Real smart.

No, leave it to Rob.

I do know what you said.

Another good thing I mean, we're talking about highs and lows. The market's been down, which is. The market is low. It is a high for us.

It is.

Right, so.

Well, I wouldn't say so much a higher low. I'd say volatility because with the volatility of the market creates uncertainty. And you know, even with the bouncing back a little here and then going down again, then bouncing back again, it just shows so much uncertainty. I mean, we talk politically, economically, even health wise, there's so many things out there. I mean, come on, you know, a little while ago, even people are getting slapped at the Emmys, you know, I mean, it's like, I mean, what's the world, I don't know what's going on when the, when the elites can't even get along and they start slapping each other on stage. I mean, come on.

Weird stuff, man.

It is weird stuff. It's. Yeah.

I was at the pool yesterday and there's a friend's apartment pool and there was a mishap going on, a scuffle, so to speak. And one dude caught it, skateboard to the back of the head. And you could whacked him with the skateboard.

Did that hurt?

Gosh, I'm sure it was. Oh.

It would have.

Quicker than.

Although my head might have broken that skateboard. As hard headed as I am.

Yeah, yeah.

So markets down, increasing opportunity there with people that are noticing a greater need for safety and security.

For sure.

You've had a couple of really neat, I say neat, I guess they would say impactful cases. In Q1, one was a widow that was just, you know, blessed. You and I want to share these stories. Not that these stories have any real like walk away tangible, you know, sales benefit or whatever to the listeners.

But as you encourage, realize what you're there to do and serve your clients.

That's the thing encouraging these guys that this is, this is what we get to do. And so you had a widow client tell us the story on that one?

Yeah, basically her husband passed away, was 60 years old. Just kind of, you know, a random thing. And I went out there, I pulled up, you know, it's in the country, and she's sitting, leaning right against the utv and she just looks right at me and she just starts crying and she's like, I really don't want to do this. And I'm like, I know, neither do I. Right. But I said, we need to make sure we can get through this to get everything transferred over to your name. And it was just time Spending and I gave her a little side hug there and then I went to go away. And then she just gave me this big hug before I left. And I was like, man, this is, this is what it's about. Being there to give in a major traumatic, horrible circumstance. Being able to at least provide somewhat of comfort. It was a really good thing.

You provided more than just safety and security.

Absolutely.

In that particular.

Empathy, sympathy, you name it, I felt it. I mean, it was. I can't even imagine. I mean, it just. You expect someone to live a lot longer than that. And man, I just met with him the first time in August of last year.

Yeah.

And then he's dead. So it's, it's a tough, it's also a tough business because this, this business will really give you a cross check on your mortality. You know, you realize you see death a lot and you also see the great benefit of that from the standpoint of the surviving spouse doesn't have to worry about, oh my gosh, half the money's gone. You know, like pensions, a lot of these pensions. You have 25, 30, 50% survivorship, some zero with an income annuity with a joint payout. You don't have to worry about that. So there is a lot of comfort in that, but there's no way you cannot feel in that circumstance.

Right.

You know, but you got to keep it together too though, because she had some situations. I'm like, okay, you know what? We're trying to get a death claim taken care of with a company that I had nothing to do with. And nothing's wrong. You know, it's not like it's out of line or everything. There's still wealth with time. But I'm just saying, if you ever need help on that, you know, I'll be happy to help you. It's not an amount that I'm looking to put in an annuity. We're already fine with that. It's just I want to help her.

Make sure she's taken care of.

Yep.

Yeah, that's really good. You had another, another case where it was a couple that they lived very, very frugally and managed to, you know, accumulate something over 2 million, $4 million.

And they never thought they had more than 2 or 300,000. They're like, I mean, they knew. She knew she had a 401k, but she didn't realize what it could actually do for her. And I went back to deliver the policy and she started getting all teary eyed and cried a little bit, and she goes I'm just so happy to know I don't have to worry about my money anymore. And I was just like, it's so great to be in this business. I love it. I mean, you think about this, you know, I was in the jewelry business for years and the only time people buy jewelry is for a happy occasion. I mean, I don't know of any, you know. Well, I don't know. There's a couple agents that bought a divorce ring. You know, they're like, hey, I just got a settlement for my ex husband, I'm buying a ring. But most time it's all happy, right. And you know, this business, even though you may have the challenging circumstances in this quarter, I mean, that wasn't the only one. And another guy in the same week. I had to deal with the death claim. He lost his wife and she was only 62 years old and I met them last year. And I'm telling you, you never would have known a year later she would be gone. It was so heartbreaking. But I mean, the entire time I'm talking to him, you could tell he's just one, one second away from losing it. And yeah, that's tough. But you know what, that's what our industry's about. I mean, when we deal with this age group, yeah, we're going to have people that are going to live a long time and we're going to have people that pass away prematurely and it's, it can be very tough.

That was one of my notes I made for this particular episode was that this is prime time for annuities.

It is.

I mean, when you look at the options that are out there, volatility in.

The market telling you interest rates going up in annuities, I mean, we have a fixed one year point to point at 2.75%.

Yes. Fixed account. Yeah.

And you know, granted we have other indices in that particular annuity, but 2.75 for a fixed one year rate. Well, that, this is incredible.

That, what that. Okay, I know what you're referring to. So you've got a fixed account.

I know what that one is.

Yeah.

Reach out to Caleb because we're one of the few ones that actually have.

That, that it's true. You get a 2.75% fixed rate for year one and you've got at least two annual point to point index strategies that I know of, averaging over six and a half. One is over seven for the last 10 years.

Now, it's very important to understand we're using worst case scenario in the last 10 years. So it goes, most of these go back 25, 30 years, use 10 year increments. We're talking about the worst it's performed, not the best. Because I will not use the best out of indices. I'll use the worst performance and you know, who knows what it's going to do the next 10 years. But I do know for a fact we have a good income part of it that is stacked on top of the index. And as long as they keep that, I mean I've already told them, I've written a ton of business with them and other insurance companies as well. But I told them, I said if you change that income guarantee, you will no longer be the far better, far superior product.

Right.

You know, because there's other ones out there that if we're just talking straight index, it's pretty darn close. Yeah, but yeah, I mean every quarter this year is, and this is also with a weird thing is the longest I've ever went without taking a week off.

Over a year and a half.

Oh yeah, easy. I think I went through a stage of 2020 where I had like three months where I didn't anywhere. But I still took time off. Right. I'd be curious to see what my calendar says because I would probably go back five or six, seven years ago where I've had this on. But once again, when the net's full of fish, you know, that's why I'm sitting here drinking tea while we're talking because my voice is literally, oh plus he had Texas allergies on top of it.

So it's a recipe.

Yes, it is.

Well, and that is another high point from Q1 is we did see very substantial and widespread rate increases. Higher par rates, higher caps, lower spreads kind of across the board on those index strategies, which is always good.

10 year tribe free go up. That's a big thing that helps us a lot.

Yeah.

And, and I still expect that to continue to go up. And CD rates, I mean a five year CD is still a lot less than the one year annual point to point. It's just we're in a really good time as far as our opportunity.

Absolutely. Well and that's why when we talk about highs and lows, it really, other than, you know, some Sad scenarios in Q1, there's not really many lows to speak of. It's, it's been a really good time. We are in prime time a lot of the entire, lot of client opportunities with existing clients as well as new clients. So get ready for, for hopefully a big Q2.

Absolutely. Well, I hope this helps you guys. We'll wrap it up. And happy selling.