New Years Encouragement | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 125

Hello, everyone. Chad Owen. Welcome to this week's podcast. And as you can see, if you are watching on YouTube, Caleb north is no longer with us and no longer alive. His wife killed him when he called her brain a bowl of noodles. But anyway, if you haven't watched that or listened to that from last week, feel free to join. Listen to it. And you can actually hear Caleb scream in the background. And then as he's taken out of the picture. Just joking. He actually is here. Caleb, come on in.

No, no, no. There's no. For the record. Anyway. So, Caleb, what are we talking about?

I'll tell you what we're talking about.

For a women's brain.

But anyway, I had no clue where Chad was going with that, and I was remarkably morbid.

You should be.

If you don't. If you don't watch us on YouTube, you gotta watch. That's true. If you haven't seen Caleb's face before, that alone will make you laugh. So more than likely, no. Okay, this is our last one for the year. Okay. So we got a new year. This is the new year. See, this is what happens when you don't celebrate New Year's because you didn't want to go into 2021. So to me, it's still 2020, so. Yeah, because 2021 hasn't gotten any better. Or has it? It has. Oh, okay. We'll see. So what are we talking about today and what.

We want to encourage everybody with the new year. We want to.

I'm talking with a dead man right now. I.

That was one of those deals. He says, hey, Caleb, why don't you step out of the frame for a minute and then just let me handle this? And I'm okay. Well, that's. That's odd. And then.

But really, we want you to look, we want you to listen to previous podcasts and we want you to look at the YouTube channel, because audio and visual, even though sometimes you have to watch us, it does help retention, so.

It sure does.

Okay, what are we talking about today?

I want to encourage everybody.

Might be an empty square right now.

I want to encourage everybod with some. Some different ideas and things that they can start the new year off. So what are you going to be doing in the new year, Chad, to really kick things off well and strong?

Same thing I do every week. It is. It's the same thing. I don't. I am. I've never been a New Year's resolution person. I've never been. This is a brand new year. I'm Going to get a fresh start. Now that being said, there are some circumstantial things that have happened in previous years or just a bad run on something. It hasn't happened. I can't recall last time because literally I try and reset after the bad things happen. Because the reality is we all have challenges in life. We all have things that blindside us and hit us. But I reset right there.

Absolutely.

Like if it's time to lose weight, it's time to lose weight. If it's time to get healthy, it's time to get healthy. If it's time to run and go jog, that's never going to happen.

It's just never time for that.

There's never a time to go jogging. I don't get it. Every runner you look at looks miserable while they're running. You don't see people running with a smile anyway. So that's something you will never. So the reality is is everything's the same. Sure, I still make calls on Monday, I still make my own appointments, I still do my own follow up and I still write my own applications. I still have the same lead sources going that I've had for a decade. You know, some new ones here and there. But man, I just, it, it doesn't stop. It stays the same. And even if I've been gone because I always take off extra time towards the end of the year just because there's less days. I mean, I've said this for many years, people that want to meet at the end of the year are very serious. But generally you're not running as many appointments. So it's time I'm able to reset. But man, when it, when the new year comes, it's the same thing. It's Monday, time to make calls. It's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, time to run appointments. It's Friday, time to do pending business and follow up. So nothing different? Yeah, absolutely same thing.

Just in hearing you say that though, I can think of a couple of ideas that I have for agents for some things that maybe they can do. And really it stems from your idea of I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. Well, the reality is most agents can't just keep doing what they've been doing. So if that's you, if you find yourself in a situation where you're like Caleb, I can't keep doing what I've been doing because what I've been doing isn't working well, then establish a process that does. And that's why ads able to come into 20, 21 and say, in all honesty, I'm just going to keep doing what I've been doing. I don't need to make a resolution because what I've been doing works. It's is find something that works, establish it and run with it. And then maybe go into 22, 20, 22 and be able to be in this place of I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing.

Absolutely. It's like when you get a car and you turn it on, do you expect it to do anything different than what I did yesterday? No. You expect the switch to go on. It's going to go. It's going to drive. It's going to do what it needs to do. Now, do you need maintenance? Do you need to change tires out? Yeah, absolutely. Do things break down? Yeah. As you get older, some things break down. It just happens.

He's thinking about himself.

Sometimes you're in the shop a lot longer than you used to be. It's just how it is. And so the reality is, when we come down to the nitty gritty things, a system and a process is what allows you to be consistent in the same thing, same routine. I can be gone three weeks on a vacation, come back. I mean, I am not one of those guys. And everybody on my team knows this. We'll be going on a trip like when we went to Maui last year. Oh, are you excited? No. Are you excited? No. Day before, are you excited? No. Now, once we get on that plane. Yeah. The excitement starts to kick in. I'm excited because it's that time. I do not take a vacation before a vacation and I don't take a vacation after a vacation. It's time to get back to the routine. It's time to do the system in the process. And if you have a system in a process, it's easy to get back in that routine because you just start off where the machine normally is and it's just a reset.

That's true. It's true. I would say too. Well, I'm going to take a tangent real quick. As somebody who has vacationed with the Owen family, I will say that if you grow up taking vacations that you relax more in, you may need a vacation after your vacation with them because it is an itinerary based go, go, go experience and do as much as you possibly can because who knows when you're going to be back, Which I value that. But I will say sometimes I need a vacation after my vacation.

Anyways, because.

You'Re not as in Shape as I am.

That has to be it. There is no other explanation for that. Yes, I would encourage you as an agent to start looking for people to mentor yourself. And I can say at your numbers, Chad, and your production, you, you were producing very, very well. But I noticed in your numbers multi million dollar upticks when you started training other agents in the industry. When you look at the year that you started and what you've done each year since you've started really in the academy, specifically in training agents, there are multimillion dollar leaps and jumps every single year. And so my encouragement to an agent would be pour out what you've learned, but make a covenant with yourself. Make a decision today that you're not going to try to explain something you don't know. And that's where things can get dangerous. But if you decide you're going to help somebody, you're going to take bring another agent under your wing, so to speak, you're going to be pouring into others, training them. You will notice your process get better. You will notice your knowledge grow. And if they ask you questions that you don't know and you've decided that you're not going to try to speak on something that you don't know about, then it forces you to go look it up so that you can speak into that specifically.

Yeah, you know, it is. I mean, the reality comes down to when I got married. Even though I've always treated when I was dating my wife or dating my girlfriend at the time, then fiance, then my wife. Yeah, I really, I can confidently say I treated her very well. But even as a husband, I always want to treat her better now than I did then.

Absolutely.

And so constantly. So what do you have to do? You have to learn how to. And seasons change and likes change. Like when I first met her, her favorite color was purple. I mean, it was purple to the core. She still likes it now, but now it's not her favorite color to say. I mean, yeah, she likes eggplant purple. That's kind of it. But she has multiple colors she likes now. And it's just because things have changed. You know, if I go and got her something that I bought her when we had no money, she would still value that. But I still want to get her something nicer and bless her even more. Not that even remotely that matters to her. Hers is all about the thought behind everything. So I want to be better and better. And then you become a father or a mother and then you're going, I need to be better because Someone is watching me at all times. I mean, when. When I have three daughters and a son, all three of my daughters are watching me to see how a man should treat them. So they're picking their husband based off of how I treated their mom. And so fortunately, one hit it really well. The other. So much. No, just joking. Caleb is an incredible husband to my daughter, and I have no doubt about it, because how do you know he's an incredible husband to my daughter? He's still alive.

That's the importance, contrary to what the podcast started out at.

That's true. Okay, that's a good point. But the reality is, when we mentor someone, our whole idea is to constantly be better. Yeah. Do we want the student to surpass the teacher? Absolutely. I love it when somebody tells me they. I had a. My. One of my people I mentor has beat me. My largest sale ever was 4 million. Is 3.7 million. Before that, largest sales, 4 million. His largest sales, 5 million. Yeah. I'm not threatened by that. I'm not. Oh, man, I wish that was me. I'm like, this is so incredible. So when you mentor others, it forces you to be a better person.

Right?

And I agree with that 100%. Absolutely. Seek the knowledge to continue to keep up. If not now, once again, that doesn't mean just because I mentor people, I don't learn from the student. I learn from students all day long. There's some people that I mentor right now that they come up with this idea in the annuity business. I'm like, wow. I never really thought that could be done, but because they did it. I heard of a guy that actually would door knock. That's how he would get his clients. He would go door to door in neighborhoods, introducing himself. I haven't done it, nor will I, but I'm like, that is something I've never heard of anybody doing in this industry.

There's other industries that. That can work in, but this is a tough one.

That's. I could not imagine doing that. But he does pretty well at it. Not a huge 2 to 3 million a year, but still. But what's his lead cost?

Gasoline.

Well, in time. I mean, time is the big thing because, I mean, you can get tied up in conversations. Sure. Yeah. So I wouldn't do it. But he never heard of it before.

He's done well with it, too.

Yeah.

That's good. So be innovative.

Yeah.

There's another one for you for the start of the year. Think of ways to be innovative. Think of ways to make your processes better. More efficient, stronger, more productive. Just be, be an innovative thing. Thinker in, in kind of that line. What would you say, Chad, for somebody that maybe 2020 was a. Was a rough year? And I would say that for most people, it was. It was.

I don't know of anybody where 2020 wasn't a rough year.

Yeah, well, and, and, and commonly it's, you know, ended up in agents producing far less than what they wanted to. And so a lot of these people may be coming into 2021 kind of having under produced in 2020 relation to their goals. What would you say to them to encourage.

Interesting, though. I don't know if I haven't heard of many agents that have done less. Okay. They actually did. I don't. I can't recall of any agent that was. Had a system in a process that did less in 2020 than they did the previous year.

It's good.

Now, granted, I'm mentoring and coaching them, sure. But the. Because they'll see I don't give up. I mean, I don't care what's going on in the economy. I don't care what's going on politically. I don't care what's going. It doesn't matter to me. I'm gonna make sure I need to do what I need to do to help people get to where they want to be. Absolutely. That's. There's nothing that will deter me from that. I don't care how tired, how what I will actually do this. So that being said, it doesn't mean they may have done more volume, but the clawing and the grabbing and the, and the stress, I mean, it's time to take yourself into the shop at times. This is why normally in a normal time, I take a vacation every month to month and a half. Obviously, 2020, that didn't happen, but I have to, because when I'm out on that field, I'm pushing like crazy, I'm straining parts and it's. I call myself a drag race car. I'm like, you tow me up to the line, I rev that engine, I spin those tires, I get warmed up, I grab onto that track, I go that quarter mile with everything I got. Then I get to the end, I put the parachute out and I get towed back in. And they go back and rebuild my entire engine. So that's what a vacation does for me. And guess as soon as that engine is rebuilt, guess what? I made it to the next round because I beat the guy next to me, and I'm ready to go to the Next round, and I'm ready to win that championship. But that doesn't mean I don't have other people alongside of me. To me, a championship is not one person standing up on the podium. It is literally your entire team that got you there, that rebuilt your engine. I mean, think about this. You can be the most perfect drag race car out there with the most expensive, perfect fuel, and they can forget one little bolt on that where the engine connects to the frame. And I can. I've seen it before, where that engine just goes. Flies up and explodes. And that one person, that. That was their one job was just as critical as the person actually out running appointments.

That's good. That's a really good. That's great analogy.

And I would say I really don't want to explode and die. You don't want to see the inside of this at all. It's messy.

You're. You're in rare form today, Chad.

I'm always in rare form. I don't know what's wrong with me. I've retired a lot of psychiatrists trying to figure that one out.

There you go. Plenty of couches done been worn out.

Couch supposed to lay on a couch. I've never done that before.

How do we get in these rabbit trails?

Sometimes we got to keep. We got to keep the color going. Got to keep them entertained. Okay, so next it's education and entertainment.

Absolutely. 100%.

Well, that's great. No, and I totally agree with you and all of that. I think just find something to improve what you did last year and run with it. And then hopefully, if you can establish a good process this year and you really ramp that up and build that up and make that something that's effective and efficient, then maybe next year you come into 2020 and you're sitting here like Chad, going, I don't have anything to change.

You know, I can give you something, actually. I know beyond any shadow of doubt, if you do not have a good marketing organization, get one partner with one. I mean, I. I actually help train and coach some other marketing organizations, and I look at them and going, dang, they're not. There's one organization that uses us, and they literally use us for so many things with their agents, and they pay for it. They pay for this for their agents. So that tells me. I'm like, now that's a marketing organization that truly has the vested interest of their agents. But if you don't have that, and by the way, if you are with one of those organizations that we already partner with, you cannot come under our fmo. You just can't. We have already made agreements. We are not that type of group. We will help you make the most of every organization. But we would never partner with someone that already wasn't top notch. I get reached out to on LinkedIn and other institutions, these marketers. Oh yeah, we'd love to have your training program. Nope, not gonna get it because I know the root of the marketing organization. I know what they're about. But the ones we are with are top notch. But if you are not, we do have that available. It's Retirement Realized financial and I'm telling you we can help you knock out 2021 and our training. You get all of our training platform as part. And I will challenge anybody to find a training platform like what we have on the annuity sales coach. You just don't find that or Retirement realized Agents Academy. I mean we have, we have multiple names out there for our organization. But I will challenge anybody try and find a platform. What we have on the. The actual agent training platform. Absolutely. My team has done a phenomenal job. They make me look way better than I am the contents there. But I'll tell you what, the way they laid it out to whereas a full training process I can te but once again I had experts tell me this is what we'd like to see the format go. This is how we can help people retain more information and boy do we have the team to do that. So reach out to Caleb. Obviously if you want to become part of our organization. But don't get to the end of 2021 wishing you would have done something at the beginning and being frustrated and disappointed. This is an incredible business. We have 10 to 15 years of just being the golden age of annuities. Partner with people who know what they're talking about in this industry. So I hope this helps you guys. You have a great day and of course as always, happy selling.