Small Decisions, Big Impact | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 170

Today we're going to talk about three small things that make a huge difference.

Welcome back to this week's episode. I am Chad Owen, the annuity sales coach and host of this podcast. Of course, this guy, he's just there. Well, I'm not gonna say for looks to make it look better.

I'm like the fence for this podcast.

Bar, maybe low bar.

I like the parameters here. My job is to try and help wrangle Chad.

Nobody can wrangle me. Well, my wife can wrangle me, but nobody else can wrangle me.

Okay, so three small things that make a huge difference. We've got them. And it's funny because the idea for this podcast actually spawned yesterday. Chad and I were hunting together and.

We were talking, we were sitting in a blind. We weren't hunting.

Yes, we were trying, but we're sitting there and you know, I had a thought thinking back to about a week ago on a Monday, you were making calls and a couple of agents making calls, and it's 7, 7:30 at night. And I go, you know, it's crazy to me that that time of day works well. And you go, you know, most agents probably not calling at 7 or 7:30 at night. And it's true. But just the time that you decide to call leads is a small thing, but makes a huge difference. Right?

I mean, small.

Boy, that's an interesting one because. No, I'd rather be at home hanging out with my family. So that's big.

It feels big.

Yeah, it feels big because I look complicated. Definitely not complicated, but there's a sacrifice to that. But see, I'm used to, you know, back in the day, this was 17 plus years ago, I used to work retail and it was normal for our.

Shop to be open till 9 o'.

Clock. Right.

You know, and you might want to time this just so you know, we're not dragging this on. So these poor guys have to listen to us forever. Nobody wants to listen to you forever.

Oh, man.

Get to talk. And nobody tells me to be quiet.

No, there will be a time, I'll tell you. That's why we have the timer. So you. I could say, okay, we're done. Done. But excuse me, it is, you know, the hours were nine to nine.

Right.

Now that was very normal. That was what it was. So making calls till 7:30 at night is not a real big deal from that standpoint.

Sure.

But I'll tell you, it does amaze me. Even though I tell agents this is the prime time to call 4:30 to 7:30, how many don't.

Right.

It just amazes me. Now I used to, before we came to Texas, I used to do on Friday nights from 4:30 to 7:30 and had great success till we ran into the same called Friday Night Lights. And I had no idea how big Friday Night Lights was till we came to Texas. So I actually had to adapt and I tried Mondays and Mondays actually worked just as well, which surprised me. But when I was in Colorado it was definitely Friday nights. But now I'm going, well, I would imagine it'd be that time and Monday as well. The reason why middays or midweek, sorry, don't generally work out and middays is because somebody's doing something. You know, Monday people get back to work and they generally are going to come home, they're not going to go out afterwards. Fridays, a lot of times people do go out afterwards, but Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, it's usually some sort of sports activity with kids or the grandkids. And so it's really important. And the number of agents that I get that say they don't make those calls really surprises me actually. I mean, so it's a small thing, but it does make a big difference.

I'm kind of surprised that in Colorado on a Friday, 4:30 to 7:30 was a good time. I'm thinking about, you know, this getting into the weekend for most, you know, nine to five jobs, people going up to the mountains, things like that. It's kind of a crazy thing. You come to Texas and you've got football, but Monday, 4:30 to 7:30 for you has been just an absolute gold mine to call. Now granted we got to qualify this too because of how much.

There's definitely been times where I've called on Monday and called and called and called and only got one or no appointments. I mean I have had goose eggs. It's not that common though. I mean, and sometimes it's funny. I'll call, I'll start at 4:30 and I'm getting around 7. I'm going, God, man. I just haven't. Just as calling time is rough and also I get three appointments in a row between 7 and 7:30. So it's amazing how that works. But here's the reality. It comes down to, well, I don't want to call after that time. Well then don't expect to do 10, 15, 20 million don't. I mean that's reality. It's very rare. Now I do know of agents that have offices that have someone call for them, but that's so rare. I Mean, how many people do you know that write 27 million a year in personal annuity production? I saw this thing recently that this guy, or supposedly the number one person this area wrote 35 million so far for the year. I know that is not one person. That is generally. And the reason why I know is because it's one company, one product, you know, there it's either product pushing. Generally it's like a call center type situation, right? You have all these sub agents that push all their business up. So they make all these calls, make all these appointments, get the client qualified, and then they push it up to the person who's literally right in the deal. You'll see that at banks too. Yeah, they'll see banks where someone says there's this guy that tries to recruit everybody. It's one of the slimiest things I've seen out there on LinkedIn. But the funny thing, I wrote $100 million in annuities. No, you did that because you did not have to run the appointments yourself. You were just in a bank location getting all these fed in and you're literally an order taker here. Someone wants an annuity. Okay, fine, I'll fill the paperwork. That didn't take the hustle that it normally takes to be out running appointments.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So for you, granted, you're not calling typically in a normal week on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday. So you're calling one day a week. It's Mondays, typically a time slot in the morning and then 4:30 to 7:30.

In the evening, 9 to 10am on Monday morning. But those are only brand, brand new leads.

But it's worth saying that if you do have the ability to call within 24 to 48 hours of receiving the lead, the sooner you it's always going to be better.

Always. And here's the other thing. If I don't have appointments set up, I mean now of course I can't do that because I have other responsibilities. But I would call Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I mean, if I didn't have appointments, my job, it's like I tell people right now, if you don't have a job, what's your job? Finding a job. See, you know this. And so it's like if you don't have appointments, what's your job? Getting appointments. And so there's that balance statement there. Right now I can't, you know, I have that time set aside and I do not run appointments. That's another thing I'll find is an agent accepting to run an appointment at 6 o' clock at night on a Monday and then you just blew your day.

Right.

You know, because you're, they're driving there. I just don't, I don't run appointments on Mondays.

You set specific time slots Tuesday through Thursday and then Friday gets to be your follow up, your pending business day or training. All kinds of stuff on that day. Well, good deal. Well, the second thing that I put down that granted is small, but has a huge impact. We talk about it a lot, but it's fact finding.

Yes.

And it's huge. And I say it's small.

How difficult is to go through a fact finder from beginning to end? It's not, it's so easy to do.

In fact, for you it's one of the parts of the process where you actually don't make a ton of eye contact.

Right. No, I do depend on the question.

Okay. I was, I was thinking you kind of sat there and you asked the.

Question and like I'll emphasize, okay, so are you willing to lose all of your money, some of your money or none of your money and then you just wait. Yeah.

And let them respond.

It just depends on what the question is.

Sure.

And when you go into our academy, you'll see that given in detail.

Right.

I mean we cover a lot of surface stuff here with a lot of really good nuggets. But when you dig deep in our academy, that's where I go into the why I do it this way.

What actual document?

Document, yes.

But that's a, that's a five minute process. Ten minute process. Maybe if they're, you're having to have conversation to really talk about it. But when you think about it, you're spending two to three hours with a client. That ends up being 3 to 5% of the total time. So it's a small thing, but it has a huge impact. Case size is a huge, huge factor. And that's one thing that if you're trying to increase your average case size and we find industry standard norm or whatever is about 150. Yours is over 340,000 per case. So much of that comes from you're seeing exactly what they have, where they have it and finding the problem and you know what you have to work with, which almost always increases the average case size. That's so good.

And I'll add another one. So we've went over two, right. So I'm going to add a two plus and then we'll have a bonus. Spending $100 a month for the Academy or $200 a month for the Pro Plus. That's a small thing, but what does it do for you? You know, people spend money on their coffee, they'll spend money on clothes, they'll spend money on shoes, they'll spend money on whatever restaurants, and they'll go, well, you know, it's not worth my time, energy, and effort. And you know what? Once again, I know for a fact, very rare, do I ever run into someone that cannot afford 100 to $200 month. It's incredibly rare. Well, I'd rather spend that money on leads. Wouldn't you rather spend less money on leads and make the most out of your leads versus spending money on a whole bunch of leads? I know someone that 30, excuse me, 43 Internet leads that I use. 43 and didn't close one. Yep. And it's like. And I'm not mocking that person at all. You know, it's. You have to learn. I mean, if you just take 40 Internet leads at $300 a piece, you spent 12 grand.

Right.

And so I'm going, well, it would be worth. Now this person's still on our platform, which is great. But the way I look at this is, you know, when you dig deeper and you dive more, you know, education generally is going to cost you more when it's the right type of education. With an industry expert, I know two.

Agents offhand that were relatively new to the industry. They got plugged into the platform, and within one year's time, they 100x what they put into the platform.

That's very. Oh, yeah. I mean, I could.

I could think of multiple people right now. That's the case. I mean, I have a guy who's in my inner Circle. That's 1500amonth. But I'll tell you what, he went from writing 4.7 million, he just passed 10 million for the year, and he's probably going to pass 12 to 13 million.

And on top of that, he's doing a ton of life insurance, too.

Yes, well. Oh, that's another guy. That's another guy. Yeah. That's not the same way. Well, there's another guy. So that's two. Yeah, no, that's another guy.

It's true.

So it's constant of, what do we say, 1500 month, 18,000 a year. That's what, a $300,000 annuity? Approximately. And you've covered your entire year's inner circle training. There you go.

And if somebody that's writing over 26, 27 million a year can help you write an extra 300,000. There's much larger issues at play.

Yep. I'm learning three new industries right now that I've never tapped into before. I've never done this before. So I am studying and studying it. I'm finding the experts of experts in these industries to help me understand how these things work. And so it is well worth investment. Now I'm, I'm not saying I'm not a big fan of college unless you it's required for your degree, but because there's so much information I can get. The problem is, is when I started researching how to sell an annuity, how to represent annuity, some of the biggest dodos in the world are on there talking about like that's not how that works or they're only talking about one product because you know, that's all they push. And then even the way they explained caps, participation rates and fees are spreads. I'm going, you, you're not. Even if you explain this to your client this way and your client turns you in, all the the insurance commissioners do is watch these videos on YouTube and you're fried. Yeah. And so I know beyond any shot of doubt I could have any insurance commissioner in any state look at my videos. And I know you're not going to get me on anything because my number one thing is finding out what is best for the client. Find the problem, find the solution. Not trying to product push or funnel into one particular company.

Yeah.

Whoever's the best at the time. That's who I'm using.

Absolutely.

So yeah.

Well, let's go on to number three and 3.5. Right. And it is the leave behind kit again. Another thing that we talk about pretty frequently, but I throw it in there because it doesn't take that much time to put together. It really relative to your leads doesn't cost you that much, 30, 40 bucks. Right.

And you've got that.

So it is a small thing, but it has a huge impact because it does the selling for you while you're gone. I mean, can you think back even to a time when you weren't using leave behind?

I always had something. I mean it was a dog in the beginning.

Sure.

Why did they say it's a dog? I love dogs. We should say it's a cat. That'd be better. It's a cat. So why don't we say it's a dog? But you know, I've always had something that's done since I've been doing annuities. But you know, I hear people right now saying, yeah, but all those little costs add up to the overall cost of business. No, all those costs add up to not getting business.

Right?

Yeah.

The cost of missed deals costs you a whole lot more.

Way more.

Or leads or training.

I don't know any successful company that doesn't have some sort of. Or some form of marketing. Yeah, I don't know anybody. And so. And you could say, well, some of these big institutions, no, they started somewhere. I mean, Coca Cola started advertising like crazy. And now you see them. All you have to do, I mean, it's like Pepsi, Pepsi. All you have to do, see, not even the words. You just see the colors and you're like, oh, that's Pepsi. Or, you know, Chick Fil A, you could see the chicken and not see the words. And you know, that's Chick Fil A. I mean, that's the will of God. But that's a whole nother, you know, when you get to the point of just recognizing logos. You know, they spent a ton on marketing and why agents, and I'm not being aggressive, this already, it's a wake up call. Why agents think they don't have to spend money on leads and education and they think they can be the ones writing 5, 10, 15 million mean, yes, I did that. But I've always spent money on leads and I've done a ton of education on my own, which I would gladly take away that on my own and have a mentor back 15 years ago. And I assure you I'd be farther along now. I mean, someone who just really dove in and I had a really good mentor, but it wasn't someone that had a platform, is just someone I call every once in a while and say.

Hey, you know, it wasn't necessarily a duplicatable process. That's what it's a plug and play duplicatable process.

Absolutely. And you just put your own personality to it.

Exactly, exactly. I love it. Well, I want to, I want to hit one last thing. This Friday, we are hosting a live webinar where we're actually going to talk about explain to you the number one product that you've had over the last two years. Most agents don't.

August of 2019.

Yeah. So August of 2019 all the way through 2020. And then so far this year, over 2021, it has been an absolute beast. It's a limited distribution product. Most agents don't have it.

It's a true limited distribution. It's not the marketer calling you going, hey, I'm sure you haven't heard this we're the only ones that have this. No, I've had that one for a long time.

Yeah. So, anyway, no, it truly is. And we're gonna go over how it works and why it's actually been able to capture 80% of your business this year. And again, bear in mind the way that Chad's approaching this is what is best for the client.

Absolutely.

Okay.

With the disclaimer that that doesn't mean next week it will still be the best. Exactly. I mean, something changes, I drop it. Well, it's not the top. I drop it.

That's what I'm saying. So for a single product to capture about 80% of your business over the course of two years is. It's really something special. So that'll be this coming Friday at 1pm Central. We've got it blocked out from 1 to 2, and you can click the link in the description below to go register for that webinar. So.

Perfect. Well, I hope this all helps you guys. And of course, Happy selling.