Setting Proper Lead Expectations | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 168

Today we're going to talk about leads and setting proper expectations for them.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I am Chad Owen, and this is boy Wonder. Wonder Boy. Caleb. Caleb.

Every time.

Caleb North.

Never fails.

Can't even. Of course, Caleb North. Well, just keep being wonderful and you'll still be boy wonderful.

I'll do my best.

No, Wonder Boy Wonderful.

What'd you say?

I don't know what he said. Strike. Let's edit that one out and redo it again, but not really. Let's keep going. We are. We. We. Don't. You know what? We are who we are. And I. We do play around and we do have a lot of fun, but we also. When it's time to get serious, it's time to get serious. It's just not that often we have to get serious.

Exactly. Just not that often. It's the beauty of doing what we do.

Yeah, exactly.

Running the show.

Yeah. So quit rambling. What are we talking about?

Setting proper expectations about leads. You know, and this is. This is a podcast topic, Chad, that.

I only want leads that are ready to write as soon as I get in there, and I want to pay $5 for them.

Well, you're gonna have to generate your own.

You think that could happen? No, that's not gonna happen.

But if somebody was.

If I figured out some lead system, man. Oh, my gosh.

The point is, I've come across multiple agents recently where there seems to be a lot of frustration. There seems to be a lot of focus on the negative. And what I mean, not lately.

That's been forever. What I. What I.

What I mean is there seems to be this idea that somehow, some way, if they're gonna spend 200, 250, 300, $350, whatever it may be on a lead that the leads already understand, annuities, what they do, how they work, that they've already considered and thought about what they want to put into the annuity. And three, they're ready to do it when the. When the agent goes out there or talks with them or they have this idea that when they call, this client is just chomping at the bit to talk with them and to meet with them, and it's just not reality.

I wonder if they spent as much time complaining about the lead as use that same energy on their product knowledge, their sales presentation, and their process and system. I think the leads would become a lot better, mysteriously. Well, they become a lot better because here's the reality. You can have an incredible lead and a bad agent that's a bad lead. You can have bad lead and incredible agent. That's a good lead. Yeah, I mean, did you catch what I said?

Oh, I caught it And I agree 100%.

Say it again. You can have a bad lead and be a good agent and it's a good lead, but you cannot be a have a good lead but a bad agent, and that's a bad lead.

And I am, I am a hundred percent certain that I've talked with people before that I've genuinely thought if this person were to talk with a prospect, a potential client, they would end up talking that person out of doing the annuity based on how they present themselves, present the stuff. Just, it was weird.

Let me give you an example of 2.2inverse. They're both opposite of each other. I wasn't in market where I was writing 17 to 21 million a year in annuities. I left to come down to Texas, the person took over my exact same lead system, exactly the same, everything the same. And they wrote 2 million.

So they put into it the same amount.

Well, I had to quick, quickly change because if they're not writing that business, you can't spend 250, $300,000. So it quickly had to change. But they still had all my old leads that I didn't get in touch with. They still had all that too. That's insane. So then I came down to Austin, San Antonio, where they said it's kind of the annuity salesperson's graveyard yard and a station where an agent wasn't. I had station, I had Internet leads, I have scrub leads. And these people were writing approximately 2 to 3 million a year. The first year I got down here, I think I wrote 18 or 19 million.

Yeah.

And so, you know, then of course now 27 million. I don't know what I'm going to end up this year. It's hard to tell because I think I'm only at 16 or 17 million this year and. But I have the third quarter in front of me.

Yeah.

So me writing an average of 3 million a month for the next three months, that's not unrealistic. That easily happen.

Could have.

I mean I had a $5 million a month in December, I think three years ago. And I mean I did what 9 million dollar a month in March last year. Last year, was that last year?

2020.

And so I mean you never know. And then market switching can change.

Oh yeah.

Anything at any time.

So yeah, well. And we just did a podcast not that long ago. I really, I don't remember how long I know it was this year. Yeah. The other day. The other day could be yesterday or it could be five years ago. Exactly. No, it was. I mean, within the last three months. We've done a podcast, talked about why process in improving your process is better, why it actually has the incredible likelihood of increasing.

What incredible.

It is. It is incredibly more likely to increase your production than just buying more leads.

He's helping you sell annuities, but his grammar needs help. But he is a Texas boy, so.

I am a Texas.

I just lost all of our Texas agents just now. That's all right.

You're a Hawaii guy.

That's true. Educational system. My English is gooder.

Yeah, Good.

Oh, my gosh. You know, bro.

Yeah, but we did. We talked about why process improvement beats just buying more leads. And the reason that that's the case is that leads, they don't close themselves. Frankly, insurance companies wouldn't be paying out what they pay out if selling annuities was an easy thing.

Oh, absolutely. If we could turn into just order takers, insurance companies wouldn't need us. But the reality is, the reason why we get paid what we paid. We're doing what we're supposed to be doing is we're mitigating. We're basically eliminating that risk from the client to the insurance company by doing a thorough fact finder, by explaining how the product works, by explaining the benefits, by what they need. You know, somebody says, well, man, you get paid a lot for what you do. And I'm like, do you have any idea how many hours I spend studying products disclosures, product brochures, applications. Yes, I read the applications. And it's making sure, really. Comparing product, product, company to company, that's where I earn my money. I don't earn my money when I'm in front of the client. That's a product of what I spent studying. Now I'm in front of the client. And so it's good. Just like, you know, when, when you do this, if you're an Olympian and you go, wow, that person did that high jump and they won the gold right there. The thousands upon thousands of hours of training is what got them to that gold medal. So they deserve everything they get.

Right?

And so when we're the reason why insurance companies pay us what we do because somebody says, well, 6%, 7%, that's really high. No, it's not. Right. Just because you're doing your job. A combination maybe six hours closing an annuity deal, and I got paid 7% of the deal. What about the thousands of hours that I spent studying and getting better, developing new things that help people understand? I mean my academy is full of things that I personally developed. Handouts, documents that I personally developed to help people explain annuities in a way that clients can fully understand. And so that's really what it comes down to. So a bad lead and a good agent can be a good lead, but a good lead and a bad lead and a bad agent can be horrible.

I'll give you an example. We're working with an agent right now who has leads from 2013. 13. So literally 8 year old leads.

I know who you're talking about.

Some of which he has called 30 to 40 times. No contact, now is having contacts, booking appointments.

2 million I think in the last year off of stinking old, old, old, old dinosaur leads. You remember I talked about A, B and C leads. These are Z leads. Eight year old leads.

There's no, it's just these leads are like, oh my gosh, they're so old.

And he's an anomaly in and of himself. The way that he calls, it's.

Well, here's the thing though, when you ask him why he does it, he goes, because there's someone out there that needs my help. It just means older leads, I need to take more time to find that person that does need. Sure. I mean if you think about it, if you have a ship that goes down and everybody gets off board and they're all in life rafts, they're going to be easy to find.

Right.

Okay. Brand new. The ship just sunk. There they are. You have one little guy that got drifted off in the middle of nowhere and how hard is going to be to find that one person? A lot more searching, a lot more grid, a lot more going back and forth. Some of these people drifted it off somewhere and they're out in the middle of the ocean by themselves and he just looks at they're worth it. It's the one person, right? It's the Jesus thing. Go after the one for the sake of the 99. It's true. You know, I'm not sure if I'm that person.

I don't know If I need nine lambs and I can eat all 99. And I have one that I'm going after that's probably the scrawny little dude that's, you know, hasn't eaten a while and there's not much meat on it.

Yeah. I'm not saying I'm like Jesus anymore. They're just about more valuable for their tax exemption than they are for their meat.

But let's not go into ranching stuff right now. It is true though. Every rancher I talked to, they say ranchers and farmers say the ranchers, mostly these big Texas ranchers, they go, I do not do this to make money. I do this for the tax write off. They say that all the time. It's, it's unreal. Yeah. Huh.

This, property taxes are insane.

I just thought of that though. Well, if you do the tax exemption.

That's what I'm saying.

Wildlife. But that's interesting though. I wonder. Never mind. Just got an idea. If I own a ranch, within a year, you'll know what I, you know, work. That's awesome because I pay a lot in taxes.

Okay, so let's set, let's, let's go back and set some proper expectations here with regard to lead flow, answer rate, appointment percentages and application percentages. And I want to start this off by saying if you get 10 leads and you get three appointments, focus on the three appointments. Don't focus on the seven leads you didn't get appointments with.

And I think I would take a look at what's your call process like?

Well, but I'm saying, I'm saying don't, don't, don't spend so much of your time trying to, oh, you know, these seven leads and calling the lead company all these leads are, you know, terrible. I only booked appointments with three.

And why don't the, why doesn't the lead company want to send me leads anymore? I don't know why? Because I'm the one that always complaining.

Yeah.

Don't be the one that's always complaining about the leads. Yeah.

And, and then, and then the other thing I would encourage you with as well.

Say something.

Okay.

Do not be the squeaky will. You know how there's that saying, though? Squeaky well gets oiled.

Not in the world.

Not in the lead world. You squeak, you are gone.

Well, here's the thing.

Take you off and you'll replace you with another tire.

They've got a dozen leads or a dozen wheels behind you ready to go.

Yeah. Do not be the squeaky wheel. Some people ask, how do you have the same relationship with lead vendors for over 14 years? I'm not a squeaky wheel. I appreciate what they do, how hard it is to be in that business. And they know that. And they know that I honor them by never shutting off my leads. And I do not complain. Even if one didn't even, you know, I spent $350 and said, oh, I already got that taken care of. I don't want to do it. I just called you 15 minutes after the lead. How'd you already get taken care of? I don't call the lead company, say hey, I want a credit back. I don't. And they know that.

Yeah, yeah. So then they, the honor is reciprocated. Yeah, there's, it's a great relationship there.

So anyway, the squeaky will. Say it again. Don't be the squeaky will. That's how you, that's how you build relationships with these lead companies.

That's true. Now the challenge I think too is a lot of times and it's natural. Right. The idea and the mindset of I want to try and spend as little as possible and make as much as possible. I want to try and spend as little as I possibly can in leads and marketing and write the most amount possible. So a lot of times what happens is agents will then utilize, you know, non scrubbed types of leads where just straight Internet leads or things like that, maybe they've been telemarketed or whatever. And it's not to knock those types of leads, it's just that you can't explain expect the same type of answer rate on those types of leads. Right. So when we talk about expectation of the leads that you're getting in touch with, it's there's a very vast and wide range depending on the way that they're generated and then the follow up process the lead company has with them afterward to determine what is a fair and reasonable expectation for the answer percentage. The number of people that actually do answer your call that you do get in touch with based on the number of leads that you get in. So to give them a little bit of context here for you, the lead companies that you're using, you generally have what, 70 to 75% answer rate. So say 7 to 8 leads out of 10 you're getting in touch with at some point within that period of.

That may be fair. I mean I definitely get in touch with more if I called more.

Sure, but you call Mondays.

Yep.

And any lead that came in on the Tuesday prior is not being called for almost an entire week later. So inevitably you have. And most of these people are meeting with multiple people. Most of these people, if they're putting in their information somewhere, they're putting it in other places. So inevitably, even if you're getting exclusive leads, there's almost always going to be somebody else out there working that same.

Oh yeah. I mean these people that go on the Internet and they hit the website. Don't. Don't think they're the. You're the only website they're going to right there. I mean, I have. I. At one time I had one person hit all five leads.

Oh, that was expensive.

That was a $1500 lead. And I didn't close them either. But I also had times where that's happened where they hit three or four websites and they all went to me and I spent twelve hundred dollars a lead and they bought from me at one time. I remember they went to. Excuse me, I wish we could mute these so you don't hear me coughing. I do not have corona. This is allergies, just to be clear. But.

So I spent about $1,200 on this lead and they hit another website. And I said, hey, I heard you're interested. Again, you went to my other website. And they go, this just isn't right. I'm like, what? They go. Every time I go to a website, you call me. I said, I told you I'm the top in the area if you're going to reach out. And they go, fine, okay, we'll just do it. Come over to my house, let's write it. I mean, it's not bad. No, I am great. So, I mean, it's like. But if. What if I would have only had one of those lead sources and I complained because I didn't want four more getting hit and they went and met with four other agents and if you're not on your A game.

Right.

They're going back with one of the other ones.

Right.

Or what if some. I mean, I'm not saying there's not good agents around here. We have some. Yeah, we do agents around here.

Well, we're right smack in between two huge metropolitan areas.

Well, technically three, because true, if you can, Houston, I mean, you're only looking two and a half hours from the outskirts of Houston.

There's a lot of people that are.

Driving half hours from the outskirts of Dallas. So I mean, you could technically say in our area right here, we may have, let's see, three, seven. Man, we could have close to 11 million people around in this. Between Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and Boston and all in between, you're probably looking 11 million people.

There you go.

At least.

I have no idea what the populations of those cities.

Well, I know Houston is always towards the top. San Antonio's up there. I think San Antonio is actually in the top 10. And I know Houston always switches between Chicago and Houston. Or Detroit. And Houston, I think is Detroit.

I was gonna say it can't be Chicago. Chicago's huge.

No, believe it or not, you. You've driven one side. Think about it. You drive from the west side of Houston to the east side of Houston.

Yeah.

Have you done that? Never, dude.

I try. I tried not to use.

Sorry.

If you're from Houston to the south, it's a huge city and they have huge buildings everywhere. It's unbelievable. But the point is, is we have a lot of people, a lot of agents around, and there. There's some really good ones. But you know what? I'm more thorough, I believe. And then most of them.

Yeah.

Not so true them, because we have some ones that are just as good. I don't know of anybody that's writing 27 million as an individual.

Sure.

But I'm not saying they're not out there. It's just I've never ran into. Yeah. And so I'm very particular on the way I do my leads, and I don't. I believe every person has a shot, and I believe every person deserves my full attention. And even if they only have $10,000, I still try and say, hey, you know what? You're doing good. You know, as far as. Because, like this conversation I just had with someone today, they had a lot of stuff. They had medical issues. They had all this other stuff, and they're finally back up to 20,000. Sad thing, man, is he's like 56 years old, and that's. That's gonna be hard to recover from that. I mean, chances of them coming up with any significant retirement in that time frame, that's gonna be tough. Yeah. But the point being is I still treated that lead with honor and dignity and tried to help them, give them a little bit advice, what I could. But I do that whether they have 5 million or I do that whether they have 15,000 right now, I don't meet. Once again, if you need 50,000 emergency funds and savings, 50,000 investable amounts. And the reason why that is is because if you have $50,000, I consider that emergency funds and you shouldn't be putting in it. Right.

That's all you've got. That should be.

Yeah, but I mean, if you go into the any lead with that mindset of your number one thing is to help them find a problem, find a solution, then you're going to treat every lead with the way it should be, and you will do better on your leads.

Well, let's talk about for just a minute the responsibilities, roles and responsibilities. We have the lead company and we've got the agent or the advisor and the client. And the client. The lead company's role and responsibility is to get you connected with people that have, at some level, regardless of how much, but at some level, have expressed some kind of interest or.

Questions or consideration or concern in the area of safe money annuities. Something along those lines. That's there. Assuming we're talking annuity leads. Assuming that's the way that you have it set up with the lead company. That's a very general statement. The agent's responsibility, their role. Their responsibility is to book the appointment unless they have some deal with the lead company that they're preset appointments or whatever. Their role, their responsibility. Well, I know what you're going to say. Qualify. You're going to say qualify. I'm going to say assuming they're qualified. The agent should not be under the expectation that the lead companies, they just.

Generating the lead company's job is not to qualify the client.

That's what I'm saying.

Find out what they need. And then it's the agent's responsibility to find out. Excuse me. That the lead companies find out what they want. The agent is find out what they need.

That's a good point.

That's really good way to put it down to. Yeah. You know, they may want a 10% average over the past 15 years with no fees and a guaranteed income rider and a bonus and all that. That's not reality. Right. But what they need is safety and security. So, you know, that's the important side of things. Remember the role of each. What. That's a good way to look at that. The lead company is to find the client. The agent is to see if we can help them.

That's. And, and that's. And then once that transition has happened, the agent assumes the rest of the responsibility. Okay. At that point, you can't hold your lead company liable for. Well, this person didn't buy. Well, this person didn't want to, you know, meet with me because I said so. Whatever it is like, you know what I find interesting?

They would, they could say, most agents, and I'm going to say this, that have challenges with leads will go, this lead company didn't do this, this and this. They will never say, you know what, I didn't do my best on that lead. It's very rare to find somebody that says the way I should have. I didn't go through the system and process. I needed to. I didn't properly explain the product on the phone enough to where they wanted to meet with me. It's always the lead company's fault.

Yeah.

Now, remember, I don't sell leads, so why am I siding with the lead company? Without the lead company, we're in deep trouble. Yeah, I mean, that's a reality.

Imagine trying to do what they do.

Oh, no.

I will say I know a handful of agents that when those types of things, if they. If things don't pan out, they do assume something's off in their process because.

They'Re in our academy.

Well, I know, but. And I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. It is those agents that improve their process to the point that those things don't happen again. If the blame is shifted. Okay, then what happens is you sign up for a new lead company, same thing happens, and they think it's that lead company. You know, they sign up for a new one, and it just perpetuates.

The Austin library downtown last week, and my daughter's pointing out the library. We're going to a pro life thing, and we're trying to help.

You know, in long story short, Rachel was saying, this is where I go to stay at this library. And I remember the time I bombed an appointment in that library with a guy who had $2 million. I bombed it.

Like, it was terrible.

It was horrible. And it was last year. I just didn't explain the illustration right. I messed up and I knew it. And could I blame the lead for that? No, that was.

Yep. Well, I always want to leave them with a quick encouragement. It's important, especially when we're, you know, getting into these types of things.

Good enough, you're smart enough, and gosh, golly, people like you. Most people.

No one. I wanted to encourage them to focus more and spend more time thinking about and dwelling on the opportunities you have with the people you can help than those that you maybe don't have the opportunity to. That's why I wanted to encourage them.

And I know we went long today, but you know what? You're worth it. So. Okay. And we didn't manage.

And Chad loves you.

Yes, I do. Don't you? I do.

Of course. I thought that was a given.

Yeah. Okay. Happy selling.