Selling FIAs For The First Time | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 143

Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's podcast. I am Chad Owen. This is Caleb North. You know what, I just think I realized the last few podcasts I haven't introduced you.

That's all right. They know me.

No, they don't.

I'm why they come.

I'm why they're listening right now.

Coach and Wonder Boy.

Okay, anyway, so, so what are we talking about today?

I want to talk about selling fixed indexed annuities for the first time. Maybe kind of a mapping out how to get to your first million dollars in production. Because the reality is if you're an agent, you're producing whether or not you're doing other lines of business. I mean, to produce a million dollars even in your first year is absolutely a doable thing. It's beyond doable if you do a few things. And I think that there's a few things that we can talk about. Give these number one advice, Breathe.

Well, breathe as long as you're alive. And number two, have any lead source of any sort and you should be able to do a million a year. And I'm not being sarcastic, I'm not being condescending, it's people that, and I've been doing this for 17 plus years. Anybody I've seen that has put the effort that's needed has all always been a 2, 3, $4 million producer. That's not difficult to do. You just have to be willing to do the basics. And you say, well, what are the basics? Well, number one, having a lead source of any sort. So whether it's life insurance, leads, long term care, Medicare, whatever it is, you have a lead source. You know, people that actually have a pulse, you know, something like that. Now, don't turn into a multi level marketer. Hi, my name is life insurance agent X and I'm going to send sell you an annuity. No, I mean I've, I actually have had people that just found out who I was.

Sure.

And in my own church. And because I do not solicit in my church, I don't even tell people. They say, what do you do? I just say I protect people's retirements. That's it. No, then if they want to pursue it farther from there, that's fine. I mean, excuse me, Texas allergies, I'm.

Telling you, it's, they're terrible.

This is my eighth year here and you still. And now when you have Covid and you feel like you're going to cough, you cough. And then people, you know, some of.

The most airborne allergies in the nation are here.

That's how you tell if you're a Texan or not. It's because when you cough, if you're texting, you're going, yep. Darling Oaks, isn't it? Yeah. If you're not from Texas, you go, Covid.

Yeah. You start thinking they got the virus.

Okay, so what were we talking about?

We were talking about. Yeah. Selling fias for the first. And you mentioned something you said have a. Have a lead source of basically any sort. It's funny because I was thinking about this and I'm mapping this out and there's actually a few things that I would put ahead of having a lead source. And, and obviously, I mean, the no brainers get licensed, right? Imagine if they're listening to this. They're already licensed.

You better be licensed. Do not talk about annuities unless you are licensed.

The other thing that I was going to say is finding a good marketing organization. And we can go back and forth, I think on this too and figure out, okay, is it better to have clients, you know, potential clients first or a marketing organization first? You know, will a good marketing organization take you on if you are brand new? That kind of stuff.

That is tough because there's. I remember when I was getting started in this. If you didn't have production, there's a lot out there that will not.

Well, there's liability. The marketing organization assumes a level of liability when they bring agents, they assume the liability.

They're the end all, be all.

And so there has to be some level of safeguards in place for marketing organizations. So if you're brand new, there are some things that you can do to try and set yourself up. Well, obviously if you're brand new, you're not going to have some kind of crazy vector on you. You're going to not have any outstanding char.

Just so you know, is when you had a charge back and you didn't pay it.

Right.

And I'm telling you, do not.

You don't want to get her. That'll ruin you.

Yeah, I've seen people. Well, you know what? I just won't pay that, you know, charge back. You will be done in the annuity or life and, or life insurance industry.

Right.

Because nobody will take you on if you have a vector.

Right. The other thing is having a good credit score. If you've got a good credit score most of the time and you don't.

Have that like 620, 650.

No, you. I mean, yes, I think that, that you can absolutely make that work.

I'm not.

I don't think that's a good credit score.

Yeah, what is that? I think 650 is kind of, Are.

You saying kind of the bare minimum?

Yeah, the bare minimum.

Yeah. I know that we like to see a 700 plus.

Okay.

That's what we like to see. It just what it does is it tells the insurance company, hey, you've got good credit. I mean, obviously that's what credit score does. But, but it's basically explaining that you're a reasonable person that can handle doing business, that kind of thing. So if you have a bad credit score, it makes insurance companies kind of a little bit hesitant to want to complete your appointment process, your contracting and all that kind of stuff.

So I'm gonna hear a crazy thing. My wife has been a stay at home mom since we had our first child. She has always had a higher credit score than me.

Always.

I mean, it's great. It's always five points. Like, I think mine's 810 right now and hers is 815. I like going how. I don't know, it's so funny to me. Of course she loves that, but. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's funny. Anyway. Okay.

But yeah, brand new. Yeah, good credit score. I mean, if you're brand new, you're not, like I said, you're not gonna have vectors, you're not gonna have tack. Well, you may, I mean, not in industry related. You're not gonna have some kind of crazy outstanding charge back. So you're gonna be okay there.

That's another bad one.

I was going to say you're not going to have any industry related, but you can get those obviously outside, so you don't deal with that. And then good credit score. If you can get those things locked down, you're probably going to be okay for contracting. You know, marketing organizations, they may say they're, you know, taking a chance or whatever because they just don't. You don't have any background in the industry, but that's an important organization and.

You don't have credit history or you don't have payment history, they're going to stick it to you with high interest rates while in the insurance industry, you can't, you know, you're not sticking it to anybody because they just want to prove you right. So. Yeah, that's very important.

Yeah, but that's, that's kind of the key point there is the marketing organization. They're, they're going to help you. They're going to be support for you. I will Say, one of the things that marketing organizations get hesitant about when you're talking about somebody that is brand new is the fact that they don't have any prior production history. There is no real projection as to what this person will do. But they know they're going to have man hours and time into helping you. So there's this kind of, this balance of do we, is this person easy to work with? Are they coachable? Can I actually work with this person and get them up to speed or are they challenging and difficult to work with and that kind of thing?

I mean, man, we've had some brand new agents. I just talked to an agent that was a pastor and he just wrote $850,000 on Friday. Yeah, he had a better week than last week. Rude.

But it's true motivation. I know you're competitive like me by nature. So there's, it's, it's motivation.

Yeah. Was it? Yeah. Because I did 8:17.

You did, you had a phenomenal week.

I mean there eight, I got beat by a noob. It's like those little middle schoolers that kick your tail on Call of Duty.

Well, it helps to have one $800,000 case too.

Yeah.

You know what I mean.

So you know what, we talked about that case and I remember him calling me. He's in my inner circle. A brand new guy in my inner circle. And that's when it cost 1500amonth. But I'm telling you, you know, do you think he cares when I just sold an $850,000 annuity?

Not a chance.

We went over that case and he texted me, goes, I got, I got it. And so that's incredible.

It's amazing.

It's incredible. So back to can you do $1 million in a year? Absolutely. Just under 50,000 in a day.

But it's crazy to me when you think about the industry kind of normal numbers. If you ride over a million dollars a year in annuity premium, you're in the top 5%.

Yeah.

So. Right.

Yep.

It's crazy to me. It's a mind boggling that you can't. I mean if you're writing less than that, you're not really able in most parts of the country to earn a living. Yeah, I mean, much less, you know, creating a legacy, which is a whole other discussion in and of itself.

I think it's, you know, under 2 million you're going to, you're going to be able to pay bills. 2 to 4 million, you're 2 to 5 million, you're having a lifest style.

Right.

5 million and above. You're. You're. You can leave legacies. Yeah. You know, and that to me is everything. If I'm only preparing for me, I don't. That's not good. I want to prepare for many generations beyond me. Well, beyond when I'm dead. I want people to be able to just reap the benefits of hard work because I know I instilled that in them as well. Absolutely. So, yeah. But first, being a.

Go ahead.

You almost interrupted me.

I did interrupt you.

Just to clarify, but really don't get overwhelmed by the process. Getting your license can be tough. I mean, I've known people that have not passed the test two, three times, but the test actually isn't that complicated. It's. We complicate it more because we overthink it.

Right.

And man, those questions. Sometimes I'm looking. I've been doing this for 17 years, and I just did my continuing education, and I looked at it and go, well, all three of those answers are right. The fourth one definitely is not. But there's three answers that could technically be a true answer. So that's one is most right. Yeah. It does say which one is most accurate. It's like, well, it depends to the person. One person's going to determine what's more important to them than another. But, yeah, it's true. Okay.

I would say another thing. So when I was kind of going through this, what are some things you need to have done? Obviously licensed, obviously part of a good organization. And then the other thing that I was kind of bumped next on the list, even before getting in front of people, is becoming an expert.

Yeah. Learn the industry like crazy.

I mean, just make yourself a student and go after it. And you. You absolutely can learn it. I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that annuities are too complicated. I don't think that they need to be. I think that if somebody is willing to learn and willing to devote the time to learn them and figure them out, understand them, learn the industry, learn the laws, learn the different types of products out there and the ways they work you. You can do that and have success in that first year. That's not a problem.

Well, I think about some of the times I've changed an alternator out on a car or. Let's just pick. I had a Honda Accord back in the day. I mean, this was a while ago. And the alternator just was known in those to go out. So the first time we changed it, yeah, that was a little complicated. The second, the third time I was like, third time is nothing. I could do it almost in my sleep. Just take the crowbar, crank it, let's let the bow go. Take the belt off, unscrew the two bolts, put it right back in. The first time I didn't even know to use a crowbar to do that. So, you know, as I'm sitting there trying to not pinch my finger, as I'm trying to get the belt off, and you know, just one little simple trick. Annuities are very similar to that. Once you get the process down, it's not complicated. And it's interesting. I use the term crowbar because it's all about leverage. You're leveraging your knowledge.

True.

To make sure things aren't complicated because you're taking that pressure off. And it leverages everything when you're trying to understand how to represent these products. Right. Because you never want that client to feel pressure.

Absolutely.

You want them to feel comfortable. You want them to feel like you are an expert. Right. So yeah, I would just. Yeah, absolutely.

Study well. And I mean use different naic. Go to the NAIC and read. Go to irs. What is stand for the national association of Insurance Commissioners that way.

Because if we're talking brand new people here, we got.

I think they're, I think their domain is like naic.org or something. It's, it's. I mean, that's what it is. But go to the IRS website and read and understand the way that the tax laws are around these things. And then if you're contracted with a marketing organization and you're appointed with different insurance companies, call the insurance company and get marketing materials. Get an example illustration. Get these different things. And now start to learn the products that you have access to. It's not hard to find the information that you need to know to be able to solicit these. Well, if you do the digging and.

You don't watch your job.

Yeah, that's true.

It is amazing to me how many Experts are on YouTube talking about annuities. I'm going, that's not how that works. No. That's not even remotely how an indexed annuity works. But man. And then they have like four or five hundred views. Right. That doesn't sound like a lot, but on YouTube for teaching, that actually is quite.

It is good.

But don't. Don't watch YouTube.

Yeah. And then I actually here.

Just subscribe to us.

Yeah, yeah. You can literally become a part of.

Retirement Realized Agents Academy or Retirement Realized Financial. And you'll have all that training from an expert.

There's an idea.

There you go. There's our little plug.

And then kind of after becoming an expert and truly learning this industry and the products and the way they, and all that kind of stuff, the legalities and everything. Now get in front of people. The key and the reason that I put that intentionally at the bottom of the list is because we always say you don't practice on your clients. No, no, that's, they're not practice for you. That's somebody's retirement you're dealing with. That's, that's somebody's grandparents, somebody's parent. And even if they're not, that doesn't matter. It's an individual person that is a, I mean, has a life and a situation.

Years saving for this retirement. Do not let them be the guinea pig. There's some organ multi level marketing organizations out there that, you know, move insurance agents out like cattle. You know, hey, you know, just give it a shot, see how it works. And then all of a sudden they're moving people into inferior annuities, inferior products.

Right?

Yeah, I hate that. I hate that. We are not a test industry.

Right.

Become an expert and it's not that difficult to do.

It's not.

I mean, the reality is a lot of these multi level marketing insurance agencies, they do have good training. So just go through the training. But the problem is a lot of the trainers became trainers because they couldn't make it selling the product. Yes.

And now they're telling everybody else how to do the thing they can do. Yeah, no, I, and I agree. I think you work with your marketing organization, work with the insurance companies you have access to and then the, the whole key and the whole point is finding a problem and finding the solution. Figure out the problem and solve it and give them the best thing for their situation. You do those things every time, your reputation will proceed you, it'll be well.

Always works. Well, I hope that helps you guys once again. Don't get discouraged. Just work your tail off. And it does work. I hope you have a great day and happy selling.