The Benefits of Cross-Selling Correctly | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 134

Hey, everyone. Chad Owen here, and welcome to today's podcast. We are talking about something so important, so life changing. You will never be the same after this podcast again. And I have no idea what we're talking about. So, Caleb, change your lives.

Well, and it's intentional. It's funny, you know, we've kind of thrown around different podcast formats, different webinar formats, and where we've landed is when Chad doesn't know what we're talking about. It's amazing what he can just do on the fly. Who would have thought?

Stump the chump, stomp the chump.

But no, that's pretty neat. And I love this format because it really is you just, just going with it. It's you just talking off the top of your head. And so we're going to talk cross selling today. So let's see if you can revert back to about 2008.

Oh, I still cross sell all the time, actually.

Okay.

I really do. Because, you know, you have people that have their perceptions of what they're in right now and what they think it does or doesn't do, and, and you have to cross sell from that. I know you're talking about cross selling from a life insurance lead to an annuity or a Medicare lead to annuity. I mean, I get that. Or an annuity lead to life insurance. I mean, that's true cross selling. But the reality we're talking about is cross selling is trying to find multiple solutions to the same problem. And a lot of times that has to do with different products. But as far as cross selling from one lease system to another mean that that to me is very easy.

Right?

I mean, if I'm. If I'm a doctor and let's say I'm a pediatrician and I walk in and I see the kid has a massive broken bone and it needs work, well, then the pediatrician isn't the one that's going to do the job. I have to refer to them as someone who does do the job. So that's an easy cross sell from the standpoint of, I hate to use that terminology, kid with a broken bone, cross selling. But the reality is you have to refer the expert and the best solution to the problem. So when we're in an appointment and we're representing life insurance, but we see there's a broken bone in their retirement and, well, fortunately in our situation, we actually can help them.

Right.

You know, I mean, there are some life insurance agents or Medicare agents I know that have relationships with good annuity salespeople. And they, they basically split the deal with them. It's generally a 50, 50 split.

Sure.

And yeah, you can do that. I actually just had an agent reach out me today. They're really good at life insurance and you know, I am an expert in that area. I wouldn't say an expert. I'm really good in that area. But there are still some things I don't know. Actually quite a few things I don't know to consider when I'd consider myself an expert.

Right.

But when it comes down to it, you know, I don't want to do the life insurance.

It's a personal.

So cross selling really is just recognizing a problem that the client has and be able to address it and potentially be able to help them. That's all.

Cross selling and that's in that right there to me is the key. Because as soon as cross selling becomes, oh, I've got this Social Security leader, oh, I've got this mortgage protection lead, let me squeeze them for all they're worth. That is where cross selling becomes that really.

They think it's like a bait and switch. And it's like, no, I mean, I don't personally do Social Security leads. I've never have. Well, I can't say never have. I remember in mortgage protection that you say something along the lines of, well, there's a new government program that helps protect your home. And here, because I was new to the industry, I'm like, oh, really? What is it? It's not. They still use that same line this day on those leads. So I don't like using leads that aren't really specifically gearing towards a fact. And that's just me personally, I love annuity leads that people know they're going to be talking to someone about annuities.

Right.

I love that.

Right.

I love life insurance leads where people know they're talking about life insurance or Medicare leads where talking about Medicare. So I would say, you know, lead system wise, try and pick something that actually is geared towards what you're doing. But if I'm in a annuity appointment or I met with someone that wants to talk about annuities and I find out they have a hole in their life insurance area, then absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and the way that I typically think about cross selling is at least in what we do okay, with what we're doing here, with the podcast, with training, with all of that. Most agents that are considering cross selling are doing some other form of business. They're doing life insurance, they're doing Medicare, they're Doing something on that side of the, of the fence and they want to cross sell annuities into annuities.

And the good thing about the life insurance and the Medicare leads is they're generally a lot cheaper. You know, life insurance, health insurance. Actually don't know many people that do health insurance anymore because I mean everywhere you go you can get it online. Yeah, it's. But that being said.

Yeah, I mean that's how I got started. It is life insurance leads finding out. I mean I used to do life insurance leads and then I would do long term care as well.

Right.

And so yeah, I actually used to be really good at long term care, but then they changed the benefits.

Well, and even for you thinking back to that point, which I wasn't there at that time to watch your process, but I was born yet, I was absolutely boring.

But, but knowing what you did and the way that your process still the way that you run your process now, I know that back then the key of cross selling was one, figuring out is, is there actually a need here? Two, if there's a need. Okay, now I've got to do fact finding to figure out exactly what this need.

I've done fact finding from the very beginning. I remember even in mortgage protection we had a fact finder.

Right.

Now it is much more extensive nowadays. But no, I've, yeah, I've always done the fact finder.

Absolutely.

Actually I remember doing the mortgage protection and I created a fact finder for the mortgage protection for annuities and long term care.

And that's.

And they still use it to this day.

Absolutely.

Even though I'm not there anymore.

We've got, yeah, we've still got it on file. So.

But the reality is that's, that's a beautiful thing that agents can do. I've recommended it for agents that have really, really good processes in Processes.

I think that's the processes.

Process. Processes, isn't that right?

We're gonna have to look that up. I don't know if that's right. We're gonna. Producer. Is that the correct pronunciation?

Producer. Easy.

But their processes. Their processes, whatever. It's a funny word, really.

It is a funny word. But whatever it is, you need to stay focused.

I will, I'm trying my best here, trust me. They've got really, really great systems in place for their life insurance or for their Medicare and they're knocking it out of the park and they want to do annuities for those types of people. When I've talked with them, I've recommended, hey don't stop doing what you're doing so well. But get really, really good at understanding the annuity side of it and understanding when is an annuity beneficial. And then cross selling when it's appropriate. And over time that side of your business will naturally, inevitably grow like yours did. Well, it's funny, have to make a switch. You made a hard.

I did make a hard switch, but the guy just talked to today, I mean he's averaging a million a month and he's already written 70,000 in Life Premium this year. So that's pretty good. Yeah, I mean the, the main reason I can't hit life insurance the way most people can in my business is just time. I mean I. If you're writing 27 million a year in annuities and you're only run appointments three days a week and you're only making calls on Mondays from 4 to 7:30. That's because I don't have time to do other things.

Right.

So if I started doing life insurance, so I might farm out some of that over to this other agent because he's great at what he does. But you know, most people, when I, when I was in the mortgage protection business, it was pretty crazy because I'd average 30,000 a week in premium. I would average about.

2 to 400,000amonth in annuity premiums. A lot of times these appointments were done in an hour. It's just. Well granted annuity products were a lot simpler back there, wasn't all the riders and the benefits. But you know, I have no problem whatsoever with cross selling.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and if you're doing that, if you're currently doing life insurance and you want to sell annuities, or you're doing Medicare and you want to sell annuities, whatever your situation looks like, incorporate specific questions into your life insurance or Medicare fact finder so that you can make sure that you're getting a full picture of their situation.

We actually provide that fact finder for agents. Yeah, it's a, it's basically a cross selling fact finder specifically geared towards people in long term care or life insurance.

Yep, absolutely. And it gets it. That's, that's the whole purpose of that fact finder is get the purpose of the money and figure out where is the money and then what can be done with it based on the purpose of the money and their specific needs. It's really not complicated.

One annuity could pay for your entire year's leads and life insurance.

True.

I mean it's, you could, you could literally Find your entire year's mark marketing with one annuity deal. Yeah, as long as. And I'm always going to balance it this way. As long as the right solution to the problem.

Right. What are some of the questions you would ask? Let's say you had a life insurance appointment and you were just, for example, maybe meet. Maybe I'm a life insurance client and I'm wanting to get me some life insurance. And obviously at this point you probably would look at me being who I am right now and think, okay, maybe not the best fit for an annuity, but if it's in your fact finder, you would go through those nonetheless, right? You would still go through it. It's not trying to look at this person and look at their house and look at their car and try and figure out are they gonna be a good fit for an annuity or not. No, it's just have it built into your fact finder. Go through it and figure it out. But what are some of those questions you would ask?

I'd tell you, but then I have to kill you.

It literally comes down to finding out what the client's situation. Because even with life insurance, even if I was going for a mortgage protection appointment, right. They had five kids. It's not just the mortgage they need to cover.

It's very true.

You know, I mean, if they're older and they don't have long term care back in the day, then I would talk to them about long term care. If they were getting close to retirement age and I found out they had risk of money, then I would say I just flat out ask them.

Right?

And every deal that's missed is because you generally did not ask.

That's true.

I mean, that's really what it comes down to. If you don't ask, you don't know.

Right.

And I remember I was teaching this life insurance group about annuities and one of the people said, well, it's so uncomfortable to ask how much money someone has. And I went right up to this lady, I said, ma', am, how heavy are you? And she looked at me and she goes, she told me the weight. And then I go to the guy right next to her, how heavy are you? And you could tell they were a little awkward, a little uncomfortable. I said, so you can ask someone how heavy they are, but you can't ask where their finances are, Right?

Because they were doing life insurance already. And you're like, you're asking questions.

Age and weight are the two most difficult questions to ask someone. But you can Ask that. But you can't ask where someone's money is.

Right.

That just didn't make sense to me. And they're like, oh, and of course, the room laughed. And, you know, fortunately, the lady laughed and I didn't die. But, you know, it's funny because life insurance people are so accustomed to asking tough questions.

Sure.

Have you been the hospital? Yeah. What was it for? Well, I really don't want to disclose that. Well, you have to.

We're doing life insurance. I have to know what it was for. And so when you're helping someone with retirement, you have to find out where their money is. Right. What's the purpose of. What's the problem? And so I'm just. And I find myself get myself in trouble even now because I've done this for so long. I've asked ladies, right? I don't even. We're just talking. I say, oh, how old are you? What? Oh, I'm sorry. I thought it was an appointment. So that's funny because it's just not. I don't even think about it. Like, oh, this isn't awkward. I asked this all the time. And my wife went, when I don't want it. When I feel uncomfortable situation. Leilani will then go. She'll go, well, you talk to people all the time in the appointment. You ask some very uncomfortable questions. You can't carry a conversation. I'm like, I mean, she doesn't sound like that. She's not. Boy, this is getting bad really quick. No, my wife is not aggressive like that. But, you know, she's like, you talk about stuff like that all the time. How come you can't? I'm like, well, I don't know.

I don't know.

Like, for example, I can speak in front of a huge group of people. Not even freak me out one bit, right? You tell me to hum a tune or do a skit, I will throw up right on stage.

That's just. That's just. I don't know what the trigger is. I remember we were doing a youth camp, and they wanted me to do a skit on stage, and I felt sick to my stomach. But if there's a thousand people in front of me and I was speaking, no big deal.

No big deal. Whatever.

Yeah, it's weird.

I think we need to.

How do we get from that?

Well, here. I'm going to rope us back in.

Please do.

Okay. I think we need to take more.

When you have that accent, you say, I'm going to rope us back in.

I'm Going to rope us back in here. Okay.

I think we need to take the pressure off the whole idea of cross selling and selling in general, frankly. I mean, if you ask the question, does that mean you're trying to sell them? No. You're trying to figure out if it's beneficial to them, then if it's beneficial to them, you can present what's best for them. And then at the end of the day, when you've answered their questions and they understand how it works and they're deciding to move forward or not deciding to move forward, there's not pressure, it's just the reality.

It's just the whole concept of somebody saying sales.

Mm.

I am not a salesperson.

Right.

I am a salesperson, but I'm not.

Right.

I'm a person who flying, finds solutions to people's problems.

Right.

They make the decision.

Absolutely.

I don't have to force anybody or encourage anybody. Here's your problem, here's the solution. Do you want to do it or not? If you don't, it's okay. If you want time to think about, it's okay. But I know I can put you in a better situation most of the time than what you're already in. So it's your decision.

Absolutely.

And just the fact, think where. Well, I'm selling life insurance now I'm selling annuities now I'm selling long term care. No, I'm providing solutions. Think about everything we buy, we've been sold.

Right?

Mean, everything. We go to the grocery store, we've been sold that food. Why we need it. It's a solution to a problem. I'm hungry, I need to eat.

Absolutely.

Yesterday I needed a steak. I had to have a steak. It just what it was. And so I text meeting my wife and I said, oh, yeah, actually I ate a good part of it raw. But anyway, it's so good. Carpaccio and tartar are my. Oh, so good. Anyway, so I text Leilani, I said, hey, I need 20 ounce steak. She calls me, are you serious? Because we're on this diet, right? She goes, are you serious? I said, yeah. I said, just something inside to me, I need to eat some meat now. Was I being sold that meat? No, no, inside it. I knew I wanted that. Everybody wants safety and security.

It's true.

Deep down inside they do. So we don't have to sell this. So give them that steak, sear it up and watch. They'll take a bite. You didn't ask them to take a bite. It was funny. We have this girl that lives with, and I love her to death. And I have this steak on my plate, and I get down to the last piece, and all of a sudden, she reaches around me and grabs that last piece of steak and eats it. I didn't have to sell her on that.

She just wanted it.

She saw it, she wanted it, she took it. So when we're taking Chad's last bite, she's sweet. No, I won't do that. I'd give my last bite to anybody except for you. Okay. But anyway. But, you know, once again, we present the solution. Everybody's hungry for safety and security. They may not even realize it, but if we present it in the way that they see that it's important to them, then they'll take the bite.

Absolutely.

Well, I hope this helps you guys, and I hope you're really hungry right now. Just think of a nice sizzling steak with garlic butter just melted over the top. Little crispy, but nice and medium rare in the middle. So I hope you have a great day and happy selling.