Two Areas Agents Need To Be Excellent In | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 222

On this week's episode, we're going to talk about the two areas agents need to be excellent in.

Hey, everyone. This is Chad Owen. Welcome to this week's episode. And the person who's going to be doing probably most the talking this day is Caleb North. But if you work with him and you know him, he does most the talking of everybody. They actually say a woman does, what, five times the number of words that a man does. Until you meet Caleb.

That's the most effeminate thing about me, I guess, is how much I talk.

Well, that. And you have no hair on your chest.

My. I have really. I. Well, that's true. And.

We just really went down this really quick.

Our listeners know way too much about me. Exactly. I have long eyelashes, too. I've got really, like, oddly long eyelashes.

I don't think so.

Yeah, they're, like, curly.

Yeah. But they're scraggly.

They look like camel eyelashes.

No, these things.

These things look like Leilani's eyelashes when she gets back from. From getting them done.

Yeah, but you don't even remotely look like my wife. My wife is hot to the core. Anyway, okay, so what a way to start a podcast. It is. But you know what? That's why people love us. We're just real.

I hope so. I hope. I hope they love us.

I hope they do, too. Otherwise, well, we gain a lot of followers. So if that's. They didn't love us, and we have thousands of people that actually listen to our podcast.

That's true.

So they would have to love us, I would think, in spite of who we are. Yeah.

Yeah. And it is.

It's a sympathetic love. They feel sorry for us.

We don't give them much to love.

Hey. I give them ways to make money and create a lifestyle and live a legacy. You just chat and talk.

Yeah, I do do that a lot.

Yeah. Okay.

It's one of my better skills, really.

Okay, let's then be quiet. Start talking.

One of the areas I'm, I guess, perhaps excellent in just talking the two areas. Well, and let's. Let's preface this. There are. It's a plethora of areas you need to be excellent in. I mean, really, like to operate in excellence. To choose excellence in all the things is important. Yes, but there are two things.

Excellence is a heart issue more than anything.

Well, that's true.

I mean, I know who I am, and I need to make sure I'm being excellent because I represent a kingdom.

I think excellence is summed up in attitude and effort. If you Give the best attitude and your best effort. You may not hit perfection, but you'll hit excellence.

Well, that's because those are the two.

Things you can control.

Say, strive for perfection, settle for excellence. We're never going to be perfect, but we can shoot for perfection.

But I. I don't think doing your best with a bad attitude is excellent.

No way. It can't be right. It can't be.

It's both a good attitude and the best attitude. And.

And it's really hard when you're thankful and you're trying to do things with a good attitude to be upset.

Yes, it's true thankfulness. Thankfulness is. I mean, my goodness. You want to talk about an antidote to so much?

I can tell you I had a couple clients in the past couple weeks that I wasn't thankful. Once I was done with that appointment, I was just like, oh, my gosh, I just want to hit my pinky with a hammer. And it would have felt better than what I just went through.

I have a thing that I read to myself every morning that in a big way positions me for thankfulness. And it starts out with me telling myself these dozen things I don't deserve. It's like, you don't deserve blank. You don't deserve blank. And it's like a dozen things. I'm like, telling myself this in the morning, and then I go into this whole thing anyways. It's. I read it to myself.

And it's funny the way you were created. You do deserve it because of who's in you.

You want me to read it?

No. Okay.

If you like some motivational development, call Caleb at.

No, I'll tell you, you don't deserve the opportunity you have, but make the most of it.

I don't know, deserve the opportunity to have. I've worked my tail off of those opportunities.

Well, so when I think of deserve, I don't think of the result from hard work. I think of the entitlement without it. So what.

I mean, I hate the word entitlement. Right? I. Yeah, that's.

And that's. What I'm saying is, like, if you work hard toward something and you achieve that thing, okay, that's great. But there are some things in life that are given. Like, I like, I look at my family and I'm like, I don't deserve that.

Hiring you.

I do. That's one of the things I say. I don't deserve this job.

You do, too. Now, don't make me go all dad on you, man. You do. You are so worthy of what you do.

Well, I appreciate that, and I love what I do.

Tail off for this. I have you come in earlier than anybody else. You often stay pretty late. You're talking to me on the weekends. You're expert in your design. You're an expert in what you've done in this industry. You fully deserve that. Cross that one off anyway. Okay. You get going before I start. I'm gonna whoop you, man.

Wow. This is.

Hi. You deserve that. I never would have hired you if you didn't. Well, I say when you first started, maybe I was pretty good at times.

But you deserve where you are right now.

Well, I appreciate it. I. I think. I think I tell myself that because I don't want to take it for granted.

Then thankful for what you have, but saying you don't deserve it.

So maybe I reworded it a little.

Yeah, you need to work on that. I will prove it. You rewrite that, and I'll prove it.

All right.

Okay.

So two areas that I want to encourage you as an agent to be excellent in is leadership and, well, being a good leader and being a good educator.

Yes.

This is a heart message of mine that I made a post on several social media platforms a while back regarding this specific thing. And it's just a. I'm passionate about it. There's a saying that you're one skill away from doubling your income. Now, the point is not to go and develop any random skill and think that you have to develop the right skill. And as I started thinking about that in context of insurance and annuities and things like that, I started wondering what. What's the skill that seems lacking in a lot of areas by a lot of agents that if they could. If they could nail that skill down, it would double their production and double what they're. And ultimately, I say double production. I say double, you know, commission and all those things. That's. That's a secondary thing to doubling the number of people that you were able to help. You see what I'm saying?

So.

So the end is a little bit different.

As you and I have talked about and heard about. If you ask the agent what is their number one desire and they say, more leads, and I would not say that my number one desire is to get better at each lead, to know how to effectively service, because I could have a hundred leads and I could do the wrong thing for clients. And you would be. Because if you're. If you're trying to hit a hundred leads, you're not gonna have the time to service them the way you need to.

Right.

I'd rather become an expert with five leads than a novice with a hundred leads.

I, when I hear, when I'm talking with agents and I hear an agent that tells me that that's all I, all I need is just more leads. I just need more leads. I empathize because I understand what they're trying to get to, they're trying to produce more. But what I see is an agent who values revenue more than they value profit ability.

Yeah, that makes sense.

So it's like more leads will drive revenue. Yes, that's true. But your profit margin doesn't change.

Well, think about this. If you have a lead, you're not leading well. How many referrals are you actually going to get?

Right?

So leading well and what you're supposed to, leading in excellence gets your client to go, whoa, I've never had anybody treat me this way, in this good way, give undivided attention to me, look out for my best interest and man, I'm going to refer this person.

Yeah, yeah, it's true. And that's why I say like when I hear an agent and they're more concerned about getting more leads, I think this person is more concerned about just writing more business, but not writing more efficient business. Yes. And I hear about somebody that says, hey Caleb, I need to get in front of more people, but I also need to improve my process. Now I see somebody that values their profit margins more than just revenue. Profit margins always worth more than just more revenue.

When I, and I look at this, you know, this year I'm, I for the first time can actually say, I think I'm very confident I will reach 40 million for the year.

I've been telling agents since June, you're on track for four.

Yeah, and, but I mean there's still that, oh my gosh, that's a lot. But I am still continually trying to get better. I'm still refining my process. We talk about this all the time. How many times have we changed the fact finder this year? It's because I want to continually adapt what I'm asking people based off of what's currently going on. And maybe a year, four years, five years from now, it's going to change back to something I had eight years ago. Maybe, you know, maybe as far as questions, maybe there's questions that ask now that I won't ask in a straight up market. You know, there's just, there's a lot of fear out there. So I don't Want my fact finder ever portray fear? So I'm looking at what can I do to become better in this current situation? And you can always become better because every day it's something new, no matter what. I mean, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, commodities and real estate are being beat by cash right now. I mean, it's crazy. Oh, but diversify, right? That's a whole nother thing.

Oh, it's. We.

Did a whole. That's one of my favorite episodes we ever did was about the myth of diversification. If you haven't listened to it, go check that out. But leadership and education, these two things are huge because leadership. Well, actually, I'm going to tell a story to explain what leadership is to me. When I was in college, I go to a management.

I was college, not college.

When I was in college. Get that accent. I had a. I have a degree in business management. And I went to a management class. And on the first day, the professor, he put a quote on the board and he said, management is the art of. Of getting things done through people. And I immediately had this thought in my head. I thought, well, that might be management, but leadership is inspiring people to get things done. And the difference is the emphasis.

When it's management, write that down and send that to me because I'll have to. Send it to me because that's. That's a good. That's a good explanation.

Yeah. Management emphasizes the result that the people do for you. Leadership emphasizes the people and what the team collectively accomplishes.

Yeah. And how they can improve for themselves.

Right, right.

I mean, often when I'm trying to lead, it is not for my betterment, it's to help them get better.

Right.

It's a side effect. If they continually get better, my team gets better, then it's just going to help everybody. But my focus on. Is on that person.

Maximize the people around you. Yeah, It's. So if you can lead. Well, I've never met a good leader that I thought, oh, they couldn't sell a. They couldn't. They couldn't sell a thing. Every single person that I've ever seen that I would look at them and I would go, that is a good leader. I have simultaneously thought, man, that person could sell a. I don't even know what's the right. What's the right word? Yes, Literally.

Actually, I don't think that's politically correct anymore.

It's probably not.

I knew it. I think that's the way to say it.

That's the way to say it.

I think so. Because I heard in Alaska, it's like Inuit is the entire Eskimo is a segment of the Inuits. So it'd be like saying Cherokee instead of saying Indian. A Cherokee is a tribe of the Indians. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I try and be pretty sensitive in that area. Sure.

Well, all that said, I've never met a leader that I would look at and I would go, you are a good leader. That I simultaneously thought couldn't sell just about anything.

We sell all the time. No matter what your life of sales. And I mean, it's not raise a kid.

Tell me. It's not sales. I haven't raised a kid, but I.

Negotiated all the time. All the time.

And then education, because what you're doing is you're finding a problem. You're determining what the best solution to the problem is, and then you're educating that client on that solution.

Well, an education is often determined by who you're speaking with, because there's certain ways you can explain things. Once again, I have four kids. Each of them learn in a different way.

Right.

And so you want to make sure your clients understand how you're educating. That's where expertise and excellence comes in, is because you can educate in a way that they understand.

I will tell you, my best average in college was my college algebra class. Got a 108, finished the semester with a 108. It wasn't because Caleb was some genius at algebra.

Funny, algebrai barely passed. I don't even know what is a D. Is what, 61 or something? I did horrible in algebra.

Well, and I'll tell you, it wasn't because I just got it. Well, I did get it, but the reason that I got it was because my professor took what I perceived as a complex subject and he made it simple. And then he provided extra credit opportunities and I took every one that I could.

Be doing. Wash your car. No problem. I can do that.

He was. He was the best educator that I had through my entire college career. Nobody educated me better and more effectively than he did. And it was because he was able to take what I thought was a complex subject and make it something that I was able to easily understand. Annuities may not be complex to an agent. I'm sure to many they are. They seem that way. You may be an expert in them. Your client is not.

No.

So you have to.

That's why I use that term financially, is don't speak in financial, speak in English so they understand it.

Exactly. You've got to take what they think is a complex subject and explain it in a way that they understand. Because without the understanding, ultimately, I don't think they'll ever get peace of mind.

I agree. Well, I mean, when I wrote that book, stress and rocking chairs, and I'm telling you, if you don't use that, you're missing out on business. Go to stressandrockingchairs.com and you can use that book. We sell it in bulk orders. But the thing is, is I wrote that book, so I want my clients to understand in a language they can understand, in a way can understand. And that's one of the greatest compliments I can ever hear, is when someone says, you know, this book was really simple. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Because that means they get it. And something that could be easily put together as a very complicated situation.

It's true. I think that one of your greatest education strengths that you have is that you're able to take the concepts and apply them into what this client knows. Whether it's a farmer or a pilot or a lawyer, whatever, engineer, it doesn't matter. You're able to take, what, a bus driver? Yep, I've heard that one. You take the annuity concept and you explain it to them in their world. And that is the essence of education. I think that's one of your greatest. Your greatest educational strengths.

I want people to relate. I don't want people to feel dumb.

Right. 100%. So you're trying to increase your annuity production. You're one skill away from doubling it. Make sure it's the right skill. And if you honestly look at yourself and think, maybe I'm not a great leader, grow in leadership. If you look at yourself and you think, maybe I could stand to grow in my education, become a better educator and see how that impacts your overall production.

I agree.

Yeah.

Good job.

I appreciate.

You deserve this.

Likewise.

Okay. Have a good day and happy selling.