Tips for improving an already working sales process | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 255

Well, if you're going to try to improve your sales process, one that's already effective, it starts with knowing your numbers. It starts with data collection. You need to know your number of leads and you need to know your appointment rate. You need to know your sit rate, you need to know your close rate. You need to know your average case size because those things will point out what areas of your process are weak today.

Why do you sound so formal?

Why do I sound so.

Yeah, you sound so stupid, stoic and professory. I don't know, probably using a word that doesn't even exist. Explaining professory.

I try to enunciate well on these things because in my normal vernacular, I'm not a particularly good enunciator.

I understand your accent half the time and I've known you for many years. So. This is Caleb North. I'm Chad Owen. This is the first time I've ever induced you first, because I just feel like doing that today. You're a good guy. People like you. You're smart. Oh, if you go back to the. You're good enough, you're smart enough and people like you. You don't know where that's off of, do you?

I don't.

Anybody over the age of 45 would probably know exactly what I'm talking about. So I'm good enough. I'm smart enough and people like me. So. Stuart Smalley, words of words. Wow. When our producer sneezes, I love it.

This is why we're live. But you probably won't hear, so I agree with you. Let's go.

Let's jump into it. So, tips for improving an already working sales process. These are things you can do right now. If you're already selling annuities and you want to keep your sales process mostly as is, but still refine it a little bit. Another note is if you're new and you're like, wow, Caleb, I don't have a sales process. That's okay. Take note of these things because these are things that can be used in.

The future once you do and go to retirement. Realized agents academy and sign up so you can get the sales process. We have all that. And I.

That's right.

You know, I'm not. I go back. I've said this so many times. I've taken one draw of this company in six years, no income. Right?

That's true.

One draw. So this isn't me trying to make a whole bunch of money because one draw is not a whole bunch of money. I'm doing this because I really want agents to be fully educated so their lifestyle can impact other people's life. Because when I look at what we can do when we do this right, number one, our industry doesn't get a bad name. That's number one. Because if our industry has a bad name, we can never help people the way we want to help them. That's just a fact. So make sure you go to retirement, realize it's www.rragentsacademy plural agents academy.com and sign up for something. Pick whatever one that makes sense for you, but do something. Because if you, if you wait and you wait, it's kind of like that person that just always wanted and always wished but never did, right? And you don't want to be that. And I say it with passion and conviction because once again, this is not about money. This is about helping people. This is why I do this. But if you don't take that step, you're never going to get any farther. And then you're always going to. I want to be the one that writes 2 million, 3 million, 5 million. Some of you are just saying, I want to write one annuity. And that's fine. You've got to start somewhere. Got to start. But now I'm sitting there, if I have less than, if I write less than a million a week and when I'm running appointments, it really bothers me. I remember when I was happy was 50,000 a week. So it's just progression. But the only way you get progression is to continually seek out wisdom and knowledge and apply it because. And that's what you do when you're in the academy. So that's not a shameless plug. It's not trained, just. I want help. Yeah. So if you want to dig in the last one, we were talking about the bones of the process and you want the meat to that you really want to get it. Well, why don't you give it for free? Because none of this is free to make it right. Right now, just right now, we have at least three people that work on this alone. And that's not all the behind the scenes. So it costs money. I mean, that does camera equipment stinking. Five grand for decent camera equipment and then audio. So. Okay, I'm done. Go ahead.

Over.

No, I chased a squirrel.

Oh, squirrel chasing, squirrel chasing. Did you catch it?

I did catch it. Good job.

So we talked a little bit about leads data. You need to keep track of that, keep track of your leads in your appointment rate, your sit rate, your close rate, your average case size. Because those will actually indicate where things are wonky.

You've got to track your numbers, right? You've got to know which lead systems are work working. If you have a really high lead rate, but then you have a low appointment rate as far as actually getting appointments, then you got to work on your phone script. If you have a good phone script and then you actually go to meet with someone and they don't show up, then maybe you didn't build enough urgency. If you're at the appointment and you didn't get sailed, then you got to work on your sales process. I could go on and on. You need to track your numbers.

The low weak points of those metrics indicate the part of the process that needs refinement. Specifically about calls, here's some points of improvement you can make if they take longer than 15 minutes. Work on becoming more efficient.

You know what, I gotta add something up because I missed that the last one. Be sure when you're dialing, you're literally robo dying. And what I mean by that is if you get a call, leave a message, move right into your next one. Call, leave a message, move into your next one. Don't take five minute breaks in between each lead. I saw someone do that. I was wondering, why does it take them so long to call 10 leads? And it's because they would make the call, then they would get voicemail, leave message, and they would dabble on their computer a little bit and then they would pick up the phone and do it again. I'm like, by the time you got done there, I already went through 30 leads. Because not everybody answers. We all know that. But make sure you're not. It's like, I heard this before. I used to do this when I lifted weights a lot. You know, I do my, my weightlifting. And then I would take like a 30 to 1, 30 second to 1 minute break in between sets when I was going real heavy. But if I wanted to destroy myself, I did super sets. And I would go one to the next, to the next to the next to where by the time I was done with that three minutes, my arms felt like our shoulders or whatever, felt like spaghetti to where I went to the point of fatigue. And honestly, that's how I live my life, right? I just go boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm doing supersets every day. And when I do my calls, I realize I'm going to be tired at the end of that session. And so make sure you're not taking a whole bunch of breaks in between each call.

That's good.

And when you get a bad call, and I'm saying this carefully because there are a couple bad calls I've had where people are just idiots and jerks, and I literally had to get up and just walk outside and clear my head. But most of the time, I get someone who doesn't want to help. It's the shredder.

I mean, I hear that on Monday afternoons, I hear.

Shredder going.

And you go, what if they wanted help in the future? That's why I have their email in the drip system. That's true. If they. If they want help in the future, they're going to respond to one of my drip systems, by the way. Oh, my gosh. This is going to be another shameless plug. But that stress and rocking chairs drip you guys have done off my book. I am another appointment. I have this other system, and I never. I would say a 7 to 1, if not more. I'd say probably a 10 to 1. I'll get 10 appointments off of that stress and rocking chairs drip system compared to one from the other one.

Hey, I'm like, I need to turn.

This into, like a radio show. Like, have you guys write scripts off of that because I don't know how you did it. I mean, you literally took things out of the book.

We derived all the content from your book. Stress and rocking chairs.

Yeah. So that's actually me, then. Yeah.

Well, you tried not to do it. Exactly.

No, you didn't.

It's been you did it, but it's derived from it.

It is, but good job on that. Really good job on that. So I know that's probably Josh, but.

You know, I do believe Josh wrote most of those, and then John built out the sequence.

Yeah. Good job, John. Thank you.

Yeah.

Best ever. Why you root for Dallas? I don't know, but you're the best ever.

It's America's team.

No, Boston Celtics are America's team. Oh, my gosh.

Take it from somebody who loves botism. Celtics. He's shaking his head. No, it's okay. Go ahead.

All right, so if your calls are taking longer than 15 minutes, you need to work toward more efficiency. Examine where is that time being spent? Is it being spent in frivolous conversation, rambling over, explaining? Are you just lacking control in the conversation? And the client's the one that's actually doing all the talking for, you know, 30 minutes?

Did we dig deeper into that two podcasts ago?

We talked about it. But I'm saying specifically today, if your call process, if you Reflect on your own and you're looking for a point of improvement. And it's taking you longer than 15 minutes to make a call. Refine that. You got to get more efficient.

For sure.

If you're calling my grandmother, be prepared to speak for about 30 or 45 minutes. She'll have an hour long conversation with the wrong number.

Could be in and off the phone in 10 minutes with your grandmother and have an appointment probably.

And you have an awesome grandmother.

Yeah, she's great. If your calls are not converting to appointments, examine what's the perceived value of the appointment? Does the client even see value in it?

Man, that's a good point. Why would they even take the time to give you the time of day if they don't have a perceived. It's all about the features and the benefits.

They'd be insane if they did.

Features will get you interested, but the benefit is why they'll actually meet you. That's. Good job. That makes a lot of sense.

Remember, the appointment is all you're selling on the call. You're not trying to sell the product. Okay. You're selling the appointment. If they're qualified.

If they're qualified, they're qualified. Just gonna add that.

Do you have hooks, right? Like little things? Like things that would actually make them want to meet with you. Are you explaining what you do? Do you actually outline the next steps? This is a huge piece that goes to build trust. I've noticed it in yours and I don't. It's probably not even something you think about, Chad, but you explain what the next step is and then you deliver, and then you explain what the next step is and you deliver and it's exactly what you say it's going to be every time. So subconsciously they're like, oh wait, this is somebody I can take at their word because they're telling me and then they're doing the thing that they're telling me and then. Are you fluid in your speech? I mean, the ums and the buts and all the fillers. Chad, that's a huge.

I hit that one with anybody I know. The one nowadays is like, like, you know, like, like, like I'm just going, oh my gosh, complete the sentence. 1. Just one sentence without like, please. Because the and the but is a subconscious turn off for the other person because it makes them believe you don't know what you're talking about. And you have to be fluid. If you guys go through all my podcasts between Caleb and I, I not saying I don't Say I'm in. But. But it's incredibly rare because I've trained myself. And how did I train myself? Recording my calls and listen to them.

Right.

Because how many times when you first got started, you said I'm again? No, I didn't. Oh, you said I'm like 15 times in the past five minutes. And then you'd record and you're like, wow. And then one time I actually had to take because this guy, you know, didn't want to listen. I'm sitting there doing hashtag, like just not hashtags. Yeah, tally marks. And I'm going, okay, I'm into the 25th one right now. And I'm about to just press hang up on the phone.

But, you know, once tracking. Sure. You couldn't deny that. Right? I'm not just making that up.

Right.

And so ums and buts, you got to get rid of it.

Yeah, that's so good. Being fluid is huge. Let's talk about appointments. Okay. So specifically in the appointment process, if they're consistently taking longer than an hour and it's not because the client has a bunch of questions, then you need again look at how can I become more efficient?

45 minutes is a long appointment if they're not asking a bunch of questions. 30 minutes is a very normal time frame. If they don't have a bunch of questions, most mine, I say the average would probably be between 45 minutes an hour. But I welcome and I, and I encourage the questions.

That's at the end of today's podcast. I have a note here to of like things to shoot for. And that's the target that I. I typically recommend because usually what that's going to be is about.

20 to 30 minutes of actual education, which for an attention span you're getting, you're knocking at.

The door of what's my longest appointment ever?

Do you have a two hour.

Keep going more. Yep, four and a half hours.

Why?

They had more and more and more stuff we kept finding with where their money was. And they had complicated situations, variable annuities that we had to call. Multiple variable annuities. We had to call and find out what the account value, surrender value, income value. I mean, we kept finding is someone that was a $50,000 lead or no, I'm sorry, she said she had $200,000. We ended up writing 1.8 million that day. That day. Because she said, nobody has ever found this money for me. And they just went and opened statements. They would stash it. And then they called me two years later and said, hey, we just found another box of stuff and it was another 1.9 million.

That's crazy.

She thought at the time, she thought there was no way she was going to retire. The brokers kept telling her, don't worry about opening your mail, I got it for you. But they never would have communication with the broker. Four and a half hours.

That's insane.

Yeah. Oh, I was darn tired. And I mean the reality is I got this gut feeling. Normally I make my last appointment 6:00' clock to 7:00'. Clock, you know, maybe a 7:00' clock every once in a while. 7:30. Right now, even at 8:00 o'. Clock. 8:00pm I've had them. But you know, I said, you know, at 4, I think it's 4 o'. Clock. I just had this gut feeling that's my last appointment for the day and I got out at 8:30.

Cool.

And then I had a two hour drive home.

And you don't remember that drive?

I do because I opened the windows the whole time just to keep awake. It's a full night. No, actually I wasn't tired. It just, I was. I get a lot of energy by helping people.

It's. It is.

I mean when you have someone that they thought they couldn't retire, they've been working their tail off their entire life and you find out that they have 1.9 million, let alone another 1.2 million.

Right.

You know, two years later, it's very rewarding. Yeah.

That's good, man.

I get a lot of energy from that.

I love it. So all of the same things from the call. Right? If your calls are taking too much time and you're looking at. Okay, am I, am I rambling? Am I over explaining? Am I being redundant? Am I talking frivolously?

Is the client controlling a Caleb?

Are you doing a Caleb? That's a thing you want to mitigate? It's the same for the appointments. Ask yourself, am I what's happening here that's causing it to take so much time? Because realistically it shouldn't be the education process, it shouldn't be the fact finding process, it shouldn't be the questions and answers.

And it's not that you're. I'm not saying rush the appointment.

That's true.

Just don't need to go into a whole bunch of the stuff that's unnecessary for the actual conversation, you know? Right. You don't ever want to be rushed. I never wear a watch in an appointment and I don't know how it is. God, Directs my time. So crazy, because this just happened just on Thursday. I have no idea what time it is. This happens all the time. I'm telling you, every single week, multiple times a week. I don't know what time it is. I get in my truck, I punch in my next appointment and I am there on the dot. Whether it's an hour away, hour and a half away, 10 minutes away, it just on the dot, I'm to the next appointment.

Interesting.

And I'm not even paying attention to my. What time it is. It's crazy, but, you know, you don't want to rush a client because then they feel like they're not important. And they are important.

Yeah, absolutely. If you're not converting your first appointments into a second appointment, ask yourself the same question that you did on the call. What's the perceived value? What's the extra thing they're going to get by having that second appointment with you? Are you explaining the concepts of the products? Well, Right. That would actually incline them to want to learn more or ask questions about it or proceed with purchasing and then are. Again. Are you fluid in your speech if you're using. I just did a. I didn't. I did.

You know, I wasn't going to say that. I was. Go ahead.

So fast. Cadence indicates excitement and enthusiasm and knowledge. I would say all of which are good. But a pause, like to slow it down. And pause is still better than a filler.

Agreed. You don't need to say something to have a pause. The master of that was William. What was William Shatner, Maybe. Yeah. He would do R U Ready to Rumble. He was. He never said rumble, but he was a Star Trek captain. If you don't know, watch them. The old school. God, man. These youngsters even know the good old classic Star Treks.

There's so many classic movies I've never seen like so many.

Okay, so it is true and. But is way worse than a pause. Yeah. And pauses can often be a very important time for emphasis on what's important and giving them a moment to think.

So I've watched a video about it and that's one of the things that this gentleman was talking about was when you pause.

It gives people the opportunity to think about what you've said to me.

That the way you just pause right there because of your body language and your facial expressions, you lost your train of thought.

So, okay, so that was a bad. That was a bad communication.

It was. I was watching you and you paused. You looked up. If you look up when you're Pausing, that generally means you lost your train of thought.

Interesting.

Tony, you got to study body language psychology. So a lot of FBI agents and CIA agents, you follow how they interrogate. I just said you follow how they interrogate. And they will watch your body language. And statistically, if you look up to the left, you're not telling the truth. If you look up to the right, you don't know. I can't remember if it's exactly that. I'm drawing a blank on that. But if you look or if you twiddle with your fingers or you know, they'll know something's not right. It's kind of like a poker game. They just know how to read people when they're interrogating. They ask questions in a way that get a particular response.

Wants, Interesting. Well, in the second appointment, if it's not converting to deals, do they see a problem or a desire? Like, do they, do they see that they have a problem or do they have a desire? There are instances where somebody's financial position is fantastic and what they're purchasing, you know, this particular product for, maybe to create some kind of desire that isn't necessarily a need. Do they have either of those? Is your solution trying or, I'm sorry, is your solution truly the best solution? Right. Because if you take out just a product that got recommended to you, you don't really know why you think it's the best.

I was told on a Monday morning meeting, this is the product we're pushing this week.

Right? Exactly. And somebody else takes out something better, you can kiss that one goodbye for sure. Is it truly the best? And do they understand how your solution works? If those three things aren't taking place, meaning they don't recognize that they have a, or that they have a desire, your solution isn't actually the best or they don't understand how it works. You're going to. That's where you get the objections. But if all three of those things are there and present, you're going to end up with people like you have frequently saying, okay, how do we move forward with this? I'd like to get this. Some things to shoot for. 10 to 15 minute calls, 45 minute appointments closing in the second appointment, no more than two weeks from an inbound lead to an application. Those are like ideal scenarios. And then metrics, 50% appointment rate, 50% close rate, 250,000 or more in average case size. And if you can hit those metrics, 100 leads would lead you to 6.25 million in annuity premium and it would be over a 10x ROI.

Beautiful. So. Well, if that doesn't get you motivated, I don't know what will. So, hope this helps you guys. You have a great day, and happy selling.