Navigating High Market Challenges | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 162

Today we're going to talk about navigating high market challenges and how to overcome them.

Hey everyone, this is Chad Owen, the annuity sales coach. And you know who this is. Everybody say it together. Boy Wonder. And you're creating a brand for me. I am creating a brand. Do you. Have you tried to buy the domain name?

I haven't, but I wonder if that's available. I have to be looking on Godaddy.

Do not buy that domain name.

Trying to sell it back.

Absolutely. So. Yep. And of course the dead caterpillar is still here. So which is his mustache? Yeah.

I'm starting to think it's never going to come out of the chrysalis.

Oh no, it needs to. If not, I'll take care of it myself. I'll. I'll just smear some Nair on your upper limb.

Nair?

That's terrible.

I don't know if it's. That stuff still. Still exists.

Oh, I'm sure I gotta think that.

Stuff'S still out there anyway.

Terrible.

Yep. Okay, so what are we talking about?

Navigating high market challenges. We've obviously been in this really, quite frankly, since. Well, I guess since it's recovered in last year. Right. It did end up recovering after the COVID drop.

Did it really?

Well, it recovered and it appears to have recovered, but. And this year it's continued to go. So with that, obviously you're not immune to those challenges that come up. The lead flow challenges.

Well, technically, if I meet with more people, which I buy more leads, so I'm going to meet with more people. Even though if I don't get as many leads, even though I'm still spending the money, then yeah, I run into that more.

It's. Yeah. So you face the same things. And this is part of why you always encourage agents have a. What is it, take 10 or 20% surplus?

20% surplus.

20% surplus.

Which right now I'm getting hardly any leads. It's getting. Like I said, we're getting. It's getting better now. Yeah, it's getting better.

That's good. But if you plan for just the number of leads that you need to write, the business that you're trying to write, then things slow down, market keeps going up, you hit summertime, mixture of the two. Now all of a sudden you don't have nearly enough.

But if you plan Thanksgiving.

Yeah.

All of that tax day.

And that's the thing, this summer has been that it's summertime, which already slows things down naturally.

Well, we're technically out of summertime. It's just because we live in Texas, we're still.

It feels like it. Yeah.

Yeah. But kids are back to school now.

That's well fair.

Or they're on zoom.

Yeah, golly.

Or they're in a charter school.

Hey, yeah. Wait. Full, full time work. You could be in, in November in Texas. It's darn near summer time if you're not in school.

Okay, people now where their leaves are going to start changing.

So there are no clearly defined borders when you work full time in Texas because you don't have a summer break. And the temperature, you basically have summer and you have winter for about this.

Last summer, though, is pretty awesome.

It has been good.

I mean, I remember in August we were even having temperatures in the low 90s. It's the high. And I'm just like, what is going on?

Yeah.

It's not. Darn global warming.

Yeah, man.

Okay, will you focus, man? We're talking about.

All right. But obviously over the summertime, you had the natural challenges of summer in and of themselves. Naturally.

Still killed it. Still killed it.

That's fair. Still killed it. But you've planned for a 20% surplus. You had the summertime challenges and you had the high market challenges.

And I got to take vacations.

Yeah, that's true. Kali.

You're.

You're what, 10, 11 weeks now this year at least.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's pretty wild that you can, you can do what you do.

I have to.

And take that amount of time. Yeah, but let's talk about that. Obviously the leads slow down. How do you overcome that high market challenge?

Well, so when you get people. And it always goes back to the thing I say. I mean, anybody who's been following me for a while knows, I say, how do you make an unrealized gain, a realized gain? You have to protect it. And I'm going to go back to the balancing statement. If you're not securities license, you do not say sell it.

Right.

Get rid of it. Because that's a recommendation.

Right.

You do not say that you have to protect it. Because there's plenty of things in a security world that they could call a protection. I mean, money market, that's protection. You're not earning anything.

Right.

Whopping quarter percent. But you know, that's still considered a form of protection.

That's right.

Maybe tsp, the G Fund, you know, that's a form of protection. So that's why you got to be very clear. You got to protect it. You do not make any recommendations to sell anything or get out of anything. That's their money, their decision. And you got to follow. You know, this is one area you'll hear me say I don't have to stay in my lane. I stay in my freeway. And my freeway can go wherever I'm supposed to go. But when it comes to suitability laws, regulations, there's no gray in that world. It is your black and white. And I stay in that. You know, I do not ever cross over. Even. Even if it's feels a little risky to me. I mean, even my taxes, I tell my accountant, I go, they go, well, we think this could be deductible. Then don't deduct it.

Right. If you're not certain.

If you're not certain, it can be deducted. Then don't deduct it. Yeah, because in my industry, I mean, I'm in the gun industry, I'm the annuity industry, I'm in. Everything has to be done perfect. And that's just my own ethics, integrity. I want to make sure that there's no perception of wrongdoing. Right. So you. It's above reproach. So it's black and white. So when you are talking to people about a market that keeps going up and up and up, you know, there's a point and we all know this. I can tell you I can predict the stock market. You know that? Yeah, I can predict it.

I can do.

It's going to go up, it's going to go down, it's going to go up, it's going to go down.

You don't know by how much and you don't know when, but you know that those two things are going to happen.

Well, when I go through that real benefits chart, I always tell them and go, you know what? Here's the market goes up and then it goes down. Then it goes up and then it goes down and then had this long, long run, which never in history we've had a run like this. Eventually it's going to go down. But then I put a big question mark. We don't know when, we don't know how much. Because if you would ask me a year ago, is the market still going up? My logical brain would say, no, there's no way to do that. But unfortunately, man, these numbers, they're just. I just read an article this morning that talked about how the market is so over infl inflated and it was article talking about these creative indexes, which I actually like a lot of them because they're more volatility control. They're not Using the spoiled brats and to me the spoiled brass or the nasdaq, the Dow and S and P, because they have high emotional mood swings. You know, one time they're super happy and then the next day they're depressed and then they're super happy. I mean I remember this, it wasn't too long ago where the market dropped almost a thousand points.

Right.

And the title of it was Market drops over Fear of Delta variant. Well first of all, let's just address that. There's no test right now that does delta variant. It's so stupid what they're talking about.

It's like it's a marketing term.

It's a marketing term. Well, there's so many things and this is the reason why I'm addressing this. Whether you're pro vaccine, anti vaccine. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about right now is fear is used to sell.

Yeah.

So they use that as a reason why the market was fell. And then the next day the market job jumped up, jumped up four or 500 points.

Right.

And he said market recovers after ease of fears from Delta. I'm like, so overnight, right, that got switched.

Right.

But it used to be China hope, China fear, Greece hope, Greece fear, Cyprus hope, Cyprus fear, Russian hope, Russian fear. I mean everything it says. And it's funny because I used to keep track of all these. That just shows why did the market. Well here's why the news wrote the market fell and it would be always fear, fear, fear, fear. And then the next couple days it recovers and then it's hope, hope, hope. And I'm going now that's all around. It's, it's just the reason why the market has been this last summer has been increasing. We don't know the true reason. Right. You know we don't. And you can have, I mean I follow some high level economists that don't promote stocks, bonds, mutual funds, commodities. They don't do any of that and they can't even figure it out. So in that scenario there I'm going, if they can't figure it out and they dedicate it. I can use a lot of speculative thought processes but you know, there's trillions of dollars being printed and put into wherever I'm convinced in a lot of politicians pockets. And so another business, it's a whole nother. Yeah. You know, but what's interesting I found over the years some of the most successful pensions have been backed up by annuities.

Interesting.

And so you see Congressmen senators, you see high end executives that have these annuity pensions.

Right.

So my response to that when the market keeps going up is like we know it's going to eventually fall. I don't know when, we don't know how much. But I don't necessarily trust politicians, executives, things like that. But I do trust where they put their money.

Yeah.

And so because what are they going to protect first?

Their money.

Their money.

Their own money.

Their own money, exactly. Yeah. Which is their money. Right. So you know, we have to look at when these markets continue to go up. It's not going to stay that way forever.

Sure.

How do you make an unrealized gain, a realized gain? Just like they'll say, well, it's only a paper loss. That's funny. When you're making money, don't ever say oh, don't worry, it's only a paper gain.

Right.

They go, look at how much I made you. You made them nothing. Yeah, the stock market made them. You put them in some age based fund. I mean, I'm telling you guys, if you have under 2 million, 2 and a half million dollars, most brokers are not personally managing your account. That's true, that's just not what it is. And the ones that do manage your account heavily are usually the ones into portfolio rebalancing, getting a little paid from moving money around. You know, that's the case. So you know, true stock market investing is often just someone, when you have a broker is often they're just using some sort of program that determines what you need to be in based off of your age.

Yeah.

Like I said, I'm not saying. And I go into this and I have to balance this out. I'm not anti broker.

Right.

I'm anti broker using money that's at risk for safe money purposes. Sure. But if you got the safe money address, then absolutely, whatever you want.

Throw all caution in the land.

And the reason why I'm bringing all this in right now is because these are all conversations I have with clients when the market keeps going up or it's just kind of hanging out a certain area. Everything I just talked to you about are things I talk to clients about.

Yeah. Now one thing that always ends up happening when the market is up is there's less client urgency. Market goes down there automatically, there's naturally is more client urgency. How do you navigate that when the market is up and continues to climb?

Well, I mean, same same concept. Same concept. I mean it's, it's funny because once that market tanks, I Mean, there, if there's a 15, 20% drop in the market now, I do hate it when that happens when I'm out of town.

Sure.

Because if I'm on two or three weeks, you know, you're going, oh, no, the market drops.

Last year, when we were in Hawaii.

Hawaii, the market started dropping and man, I'm going, oh, it's dropping. But you know what? We were towards the end of our trip and you know, I hate. And I did 9 million in May, I think I did 4 million in April, something like that. But, you know, this year I didn't have my nine million dollar month. But I'll tell you what, it's more consistent this year. You know, I'm more consistent because I don't know what happened last year. It could have been Covid. It could. But my last half of last year was not great.

Well, you were running on fumes at that point.

I was too, because I didn't take.

There was no break. It was just go, go, go because.

Of COVID And we're building companies. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point.

Which brings up a whole nother thing. Be rested.

Yes.

I mean, take time to rest and actually refuel and re. Energize yourself. Do the things you love to do. That's one of the beauties of getting to do what you guys do. Right. Is you, you work for you.

Yeah.

Take the time you need.

But also, don't take too much. The first few years, I was really nailing it. Here we're trying to get out of $150,000 in credit card debt.

Right.

So, I mean, I was toe to toe with my finances, trying to figure out how I'm gonna get out of this. And some things happened and started getting better and better and better. And it wasn't until about 11 years ago where I really started doing the traveling.

Right.

Part of this, because our kids were growing up and we could do that.

Yeah.

But, you know, nowadays is if I start to feel like I'm getting a little exhausted. I always feel exhausted, but not quite. I mean, energy levels are good because the passion behind what I do always drives me and motivation. But you got to get rest.

Yeah. Another thing that comes up with this, Chad, is how to leverage the high market without advising. And you often come up against the idea of, well, I don't want to have to pay capital gains tax, wait.

For the mark to fall.

My stocks have made so much. Okay, so wait for it to drop back down. And then you don't have to worry about capital gains. And it always gets a chuckle unless they don't move it. And then I call them afterwards and say, I lost all my money. That's not funny anymore, right?

It's not funny. But they did.

Of course, I did that with a client one time. So I was, I was talking to this guy and he goes, man, I think his shares were 20 some dollars a share he got for stock options. A bump it up to $90. He's like, I don't want to pay capital gains. I said, it's your money, your decision. But you know what? You got to protect it if you don't want to lose anything. Right. And so he lost it all. And I called him back and he said, yeah, that stock tanked. And I said, well, at least you don't have to worry about capital gains. That didn't go over too well.

Sometimes you get away with things, things you say. And other times it.

Oh, no, that went over exactly how I wanted.

Oh, you didn't. You wanted it. Okay, got you.

Because the reason why is. Do I want to put salt in the wound? When people forget how pain feels, Often you have to have an injury again.

To remind we've had 10 years of phenomenal market performance.

Yes. Well, I mean, and so you don't think about. I mean, I look at my age, you know, I think we moved to Hawaii and when I was in sixth grade, something like that. And I've been sunburnt so many times and it takes a while now, it doesn't. But, you know, I remember we'd go back to where we go to tropical place. And since I hadn't been there in a while, it was like, I forget sunscreen.

Right.

I get burned again and I'm going, I should have known better. I should have known to protect my skin. So when it comes to the market, you don't get burnt in a while and you forget what that feels like. And you think it's okay to risk again. And you got to remember, if the stock market hasn't fallen majorly in 11 years, you're now 11 years older.

Right.

So at that point, so somebody tells me why I've always been the stock market. Yeah, but you've never been this age before.

Yeah.

You know, there's a point to where you have to start to think about longevity. There's a point you have to start to think about risk tolerance.

Yeah.

And so those are conversations I have when it comes to a very consistent upswing in a market.

That's so good. That's so good. You know, over the summer, we had, I believe, two separate months where we did live trainings. One live training was all about client perceptions about annuities. Right. The idea. Well, I hate annuities. Why? Well, this and this. It's like, well, that's actually this annuity over here. I hate that annuity too. This is what I'm doing. Right. And we talked about how to utilize client perceptions to actually drive the thing forward. But that said, we also did one where we talked about in more depth and detail how to navigate high market challenges. So I would encourage the listeners to get into retirement realized agents academy. Get into the academy and listen to those. Go back, we've got the replays.

Are we talking about anything else other than high market today? Just.

Just high market challenges.

Because it's a good one. It does, it does. And the funny thing is, is you have people say, well, the market's been so high. Yeah. People were saying the same thing 2006. They're saying the same thing in 1999 because the 90s were a big long run as well. Now one thing you want to remember, though, is also address this concern. People thought so from 2007 to 2008, a lot of people are like, well, you know what, we had our dip and we're safe now, so let's go back into the market or whatever it is. And then 2008 to 2009 happened. So I say, you know what? We don't know? And that's where I go back to the same thing. We don't know the top, we don't know the bottom. If we did or your broker did.

Right.

We would be dealing with millions, possibly billions of dollars. I mean, I bought Amazon and I sold it when it's like $3 or $300. No, not Amazon. Google is like $300. And now it's like $2,700.

Yeah.

And I'm going at that time, I was going, man, this can't go up much more. I'm an expert in this area. I should have figured that out.

Sure.

I had Amazon in a crazy number and Microsoft at crazy number. And I would probably. We have millions upon millions in that area. But the thing is, is nobody can predict that.

Nobody can.

That slow and steady is still being very, very successful.

Right.

And everything I build, I make sure it can't go backwards.

Right.

So, you know, it's. It's important to understand there's a point in life where you just don't want to lose anything anymore.

Yeah. And it's the unknowns. That is the point.

It is. There's a point to where you get old enough to where you don't want to try and watch whatever business news every single day. You don't want to try and see what your stocks are doing. And quite frankly there's a lot of wives out there they don't want to do that. That's not their thing. The husband has this little gambling thing where they want to and there's some vice versa. But more times than not I see it's the husband that's fine with the risk and the wife is like heck no.

Right.

Why would I want to do that?

So isn't it Warren Buffett that says rule number one, never lose money, rule number two, never forget rule number one? Correct.

Yeah. And that probably came from something before as well. Probably very few things are learned. Yeah.

That's fair.

Yep. So I hope this helps you guys. You have a great day and happy selling.