The 3 Pillars Of A Strong Year Pt. 1 | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 230

On this week's episode, we're going to talk about three pillars of a strong year.

Hello, everyone. I am Chad Owen. Welcome to this week's podcast. As you know, this is my sidekick, Caleb North. He is one of the most important people in my life. Well, he's at least in the top 1 million. At least.

That's glad I made it.

Just barely made the cut.

Snuck in there.

But no, definitely without him, we would not be where we are. I have no doubt about that. So I'm going to build him up a little bit today. Well, maybe you're the one that came up with this whole thing, so you'll probably build yourself up with this.

If the content's good, we'll let that be the build up itself.

Okay, go for it.

So three pillars of a strong year. We did a podcast that had, I guess you could say a similar tone to it. Toward the end of last year, when we're Talking about setting 2023 up for success, I wanted to re bring a similar tone of three things that you can do. Three things you need to be looking at and focused on to get 2023 off to the right foot and then also sustainability over the course of the year.

I got a question for you. And this will only be for our YouTube people because if you're not watching this, you're not even going to know. Do you do this when most normal people do that?

This is way more comfortable.

That is not normal.

Go check us out on YouTube if.

You want to know what this is. That's uncomfortable, that's normal. But that's no. Okay. Yeah. So in the comments, tell me, do you do this or you do you do that? Okay. Only for YouTube people. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Yeah, go check it out. But three pillars of a strong year. And I've broken it down into three really what I would call pillars of what we focus on in retirement realized financial and trying to help agents establish and get built up. And you've got, number one, the right marketing and lead generation strategies, number two, the right sales process and number three, the right product solutions. It's like with those three things, not.

Necessarily in that order.

Sure. Not necessarily in that order. That's just the order that I put.

Curiosity, what order would you put that in?

I tend to think, you know, about the end result. So I would go right, Product solutions, right. Sales process, right. Marketing lead generation. If I were to go for front.

Way, I would probably go right Sales process, right. Product solutions, right. Marketing lead generation. Because I would say to get to even Know the right products, you need to have the right sales process, which is the fact finding, seeing what's best, where your money is and then you.

Won'T know what the right product is.

Yeah, but leads, leads mean nothing if you don't, if you're not professional. I mean, a lead in the wrong hand could be a lawsuit. Yeah, I mean you think about it. I've never said it that way, that's a good point. But the lead in the wrong hand could be a lawsuit. If you don't know how to handle that lead. Not only could you mess up someone's entire retirement.

Right.

You can end up being sued, which honestly I believe people do deserve that. I mean if you're not, if you're not doing a full fact finder and you're not finding the best product for the best solution, I definitely think that's a viable option. Now obviously there's always the balance of making sure you have financial stability, the company, the customer service, the benefits, the payouts, you know.

Right.

But yeah, just interesting that you brought that up and it's. Yeah. What would it be?

I guess, I guess where my mind was in putting them in order was.

I guess in order of how a deal goes through. Right. So a lead comes through very fair, then they're in the sales process and then you're finding the right solution. That's the problem.

That's a hundred percent accurate.

And I will say too that we might need to make a two parter out of this. Just looking at the content I've got outlined, we'll see.

But yeah, sometimes I think it's necessary to do that because you guys know we're not going to talk just to fill a spot. We're going to make sure it has value to it and if we need to, we'll do it. So go for it. Yeah.

Well, okay. The right marketing and lead generation. I noted down here that the right marketing and lead generation systems are those that maximize both efficiency and profitability and they look different depending on the season that you're in. Okay, what do I mean by that? If you're just starting out, you may use a cheaper lead or less expensive lead to try to have more leads, which actually reduces efficiency so that you can try to learn a process and practice. Not practice, because you shouldn't be practicing on clients, but refine that process that you're using while you're, while you're growing and scaling profitability.

I actually just, I literally just came in here off of a conversation because as you guys know, we are trying to develop our own lead system and we actually in a month have received 36 leads. And we just started this. This is just for my personal leads right now. And we're hoping to do a test by the end of the month. We're going to hand select some people to do that and then we should be able to start to launch it out to our existing agents. But I, as you know, I never do a lead system that I haven't tested or someone that I trust is tested.

Yeah.

And one of the things was, is there's a lot of 0 to 10,000. Now how many times have I gotten a lead where they said they had 25,000 and it turned out to be a multimillion dollar deal?

Right.

That's a very normal thing that people have way more than what they put. But I said I don't want to have any option on there that they were starting at 50,000. And not only does that help the algorithm with what we're doing, but 50,000 means, okay, we know they have emergency funds and savings and we know that we have amount that we could use to where they could actually maybe do something long term with an income type product. Now if you're putting 10,000 into an annuity with an income product in 10 years, that's not going to produce nothing. I mean, it's going to give you 50 bucks maybe. But just because we have the leads doesn't mean anything if it's not a high quality lead.

Right.

Qualified. So that's the point.

And that's actually one thing I noted down here. This is a controversial statement. I said, no, not all leads are the same. And yes, there is such thing as a quote unquote lead, bad lead, 100%. But we need to define what that actually is because a lot of agents will get a lead that they actually have to work to obtain a deal and they consider it a bad lead because they had to do a little bit more, they had to work a little bit harder. That's not a bad lead.

No. One of the questions I ask because I test out lead systems and I never will ask this, Never. Why say, well, what's your closing ratio on these? I don't care what their closing ratio is because there's so many agents that the exact lead systems I use right now will say, these leads stink. I can't close anything. And I'm going, I wrote 6 million with them last year.

Right.

You know, I have a very good closing ratio. I have a very high dollar per case with these. And I don't know why you don't. So I don't worry about that. But what I do look at is the starting amount. In other words, I don't care if it's a great lead that says they have $5,000. Well, that's. I could close. Well, now you can't because most annuities start between 5, 10, $20,000 where you even start them. But to me, a good lead is dependent upon how well the agent is willing to work it. But you do have to have a standard because, you know, that lead system I tested Recently, I mean, this 3, $350 per lead, I think it was 34 leads. And I know I can close leads. Didn't sell one of them.

Right.

And I'm like, man, I'm just questioning the way things might be, the information might be gathered. Because I did ask. I said, hey, can I have a voicemail or your conversation? Recorded conversation. And every other system will do that. They'll give me the actual conversation. They said, well, no, we can't. There's confidential information. And I said, yeah, you mean the confidential information that's on the lead that you're given to me.

Right.

And they're like, yeah, so, you know, that's. We got to make sure we're getting good quality leads.

Yeah.

About it.

And I think where this idea of there's quote unquote, no such thing as a bad lead probably is true if all you are is a salesperson. But when you're actually trying to figure out what the problem is and find the best solution, there are certain qualifying elements that would disqualify somebody from being a fit for what the lead was generated. What I mean is, if you're buying an annuity lead and they do not meet the qualifications to have an annuity, that's what I would consider a quote, unquote bad lead. Because it's not. They're not going to be able to do what it was intended to be purchased.

Yeah, we're definitely going to be splitting this into multiple.

Yeah, we are.

Because there are so many things that you're mentioning that I just, I couldn't agree more with. Too many times we get a lead and they say, hey, I want to put 50,000 into annuity. I just made my calls this morning and I asked this guy said, well, what do you have? And he goes, Well, I have 170,000 in annuity. And I said, well, when did you buy? And he said, a year ago. And I said, well, how much do you have in emergency Funds and savings. They said, zero. I said, did you have emergency funds when you bought the annuity? They said, no. So that means somebody sold them an annuity when they knew he had no emergency funds. That's crazy. Or they didn't do a fact finder.

Which is probably more likely.

So the guy literally is probably a transaction versus a solution. The guy says, I have 170,000 I want to put in an annuity. And they did, didn't bother to find out do they have emergency funds? And I said, he goes, but I'd like to put some more money into annuity because I have extra money that I don't use each month. I said, you, before you buy any more annuities, need to start to build an emergency fund. That's right, because I'm not doing anything till you get that emergency fund to at least $50,000.

Right.

And that is, man, it's a lead. So that's a transaction. That's not a solution to a problem.

Right.

And that's the agent's fault. That is not the lead's fault. Because the lead said, I want to put 170,000 into annuity. It's still the responsibility of the agent to find out what other funds they have and where they have them.

It's true. I would also add that phenomenal lead systems can produce quote unquote bad leads. And you can buy bad leads and.

Don'T go ask for a refund. Yeah, I mean, God, man.

Well, I have a note about that in here too.

This, this is why can get exclusive to particular cities or at least be the top agent in that city because they know Chad is not going to go and ask for a refund because they found out that they had $50,000 but it was already into annuity. I'm not going to ask for a refund on that. That lead that they had 170,000, that is a qualified lead. That's a qualified lead. Now, 170,000 wasn't an annuity. So that's not a qualified client.

Right.

But I'm not going to go back to the lead company and say, hey, I want a refund because all this guy's money is tied up in an annuity. The requirement is they need to have 50,000 in investable amounts. They do. So now we expect the lead company to go, well, okay, so what do you have that 170,000 in? What's an annuity? Oh, well, when did you buy the annuity? That is not the job. First of all, they're not allowed to ask those type of questions because it could be construed as type of advice. Because if you're going to find out when they had the annuity and it's just not their job. So when you get a quote unquote bad lead, you can't go and say hey, I want a refund because the 170,000 they had wasn't available. Now if they said, hey, they have a hundred thousand, seventy thousand and you call them and they go, yeah, I don't have anything, I don't have any annuities, I don't have any money whatsoever. And they sell you the lead as a good lead, well, that's a bad lead. Ask for the refund, sure. But man, the relationships we have to understand is most existing lead companies right now, the qualified lead companies, they've been around a while and they're trustworthy. The ones that aren't trustworthy will disappear. Right. I don't know if I could recall any major lead system I use right now that, well, I'm still using them, so they're still around. Right. But over the years I've had so many people do shady type lead or lead gathering information and they never last. Now they've gotten tens of thousands of my money. Sure, but that's part of the business. I mean people often asked why should I be with retirement realized financial? Well, you know, any lead system we're going to be talking about, it's good. And if you think about the amount of money that you've been wasting leads trying to figure it out yourself.

Right.

You know, it goes back to the same thing we talk about every time. And we'll get into section two on the next one.

We will.

But the leads, this is really important. I am in the field and I'm really passionate because hey, I just got off a two weeks very rested vacation. I did get food poisoning. Poisoning the morning we were flying out and thank God for business class seats lay down because it was just that side lay down a good part of the time. But the point is I'm incredibly passionate about being someone learning from someone that is doing the same thing. You are the same field. And I literally spent so much time reflecting about what is 2023 going to look like to me because I have invested and done things where, let's just say I've had a lot of college experience and learning of trying to figure out what to do and what not to do. And 2023 is going to time where I am going to only gather and follow information from People that are doing what I want to do or they're where I want to be. Sure, I'm no longer going to take advice or seek counsel from people that are in a challenging situation. I made a few business decisions this last year where I didn't do enough due diligence in finding out what is the financial stability of that person. In other words, if I'm trying to find or work with a marketing organization and I find out that the owner of this marketing organization has had multiple history with. With slimy deals, like there's one organization I can think about right now. They've been sued so many times, and they're still out there. And I'm like, why would I ever want to be a part of that information? So one of the things you do want to do when you're checking out lead companies is I'll put the lead company name and I'll put scam or lead company name and reviews and I'll research what kind of complaints has this lead company had against them. And there are some. You'll find out. I'm going, I'm not going to use them. And I know we're talking about the pillars, but if you're going to talk about a pillar, that pillar needs to be very stable because it needs to hold the weight. So if you have a lead company out there that doesn't have a good reputation, they have lawsuits against them. That includes your fmo. Now, anybody can sue anybody. So if you have one or two out there, I get that anybody can sue anybody.

Anybody.

But if you see a consistent theme or our standard that's out there where there's constant issues with this organization, then don't use them. Because lead companies are not effective if they're marketing incorrectly. And if they're marketing incorrectly, you will find out that out when you research them.

That's true. It's true.

Yeah.

I want to add a couple things real quick. Yeah, you can. We have a PDF. I can't remember what it's think it's called how to find Good Lead Systems. What it's called how we have so many. We have so many premiums out there, I forget what they're all named.

How to. Can we put that. How. How can they get that?

Well, they can go to rragenceacademy.com and click free Resources at the top and you'll see there's a bunch of PDFs and one of them talks about how to find good lead systems. You're gonna see in that document exactly our criteria and specifically Chad's criteria, to be honest with you, that's where we got it from. When he's looking at entertaining a new lead company. Do they meet these things? Okay, let's test them. If not, then it's not even going to really happen because getting to these five criteria are based on times you've had great success or lack thereof. And so now the criteria has been adjusted. I think you're in articles.

Right there.

Go up.

Okay.

Go up. Yeah, right there.

Free resources.

The thing that says free resources.

Yeah. And then 20.

Sorry, we. I just want to make sure it's right.

Wow, this is good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It's called how to find a good lead source. So it was.

So you can download it straight there on our agents academy dot com. Yeah. Three takeaways real quick. And I'm going to hit these quickly. Buying the best leads and bringing them into a poor process is not going to yield the results you seek. So you can go and you can drop thousands and thousands of dollars on trying to get what look to be the quote unquote best leads. And if your process is stinky, they're gonna look like stinky leads. Number two, skimping out on marketing and lead budgets to save a dollar will likely hinder your ability to write the business you want.

I'll spend 400. I better not say this. Okay, I'll pick the top right now. I'll spend $400 on a high quality lead than $200 on leads that I can get more, but they're not as good of quality.

But the reason you and part of the reason you're willing to spend the 400 is number one, because the quality of the lead. Number two, because you have a proven process in place. You didn't have a proven process. Spending 400 bucks is a waste of money.

I agree.

And then number three, you should venture into, into a business relationship with the lead vendors and marketing systems you're using with the intent of having long lasting, mutually beneficial results.

Agreed.

Like you want your lead companies to be doing well and to be succeeding.

Yes.

Because they will stay in business, keep generating you leads.

Don't continually ask for refunds because it just hurts the bottom line and eventually they won't be picking you anymore. Right? Yeah.

And you should enter into it obviously with the intent of having something long lasting. Don't go into a lead business relationship there knowing you're going to be on for three months and then you're going to drop them.

Like got to be mutually beneficial for sure. Okay.

Well, next week we'll talk about the right sales process.

Boy, this is supposed to be one podcast, and now we're going to break this into three. Okay, well, I hope this helps you guys. You have a great day, and happy selling.

Sam.