What Sells For You When You’re Gone | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 142

Hello, everyone. Welcome to this week's podcast. I am Chad Owen. And yes, I do announce this every time because we do have new listeners all the time. We do. And so I've been doing this for 17 plus years. I love the business I'm in. I've been able to write tons. I don't even know what am I at this year. Do you have any idea what I'm at this year? I do.

I have an idea right here.

But keep talking because I am curious. You know, it's. It's at the point now. I think last week I did a little over 800,000, and I just lose track of it because literally, it doesn't matter what I did the week before. I'm still running appointments and I'm still trying to do the best for each of the clients. And some weeks it's a $50,000 week, and some weeks it's a $2 million week. So, you know, when we get to do what we do in this business, we never have to worry about any sort of downside. I mean, we're getting ready to take a pretty long trip. And I'm not one, during that entire trip, gonna worry about if the stock market's crashing or something. But what am I at this year?

Yeah, you're over 7 million for the year. This year.

What?

Oh, gosh.

I mean, I want to see more.

7.7.2.

7.2. Do you know, See, I gotta count everything. Do you know how hard it is to get that point, too?

Oh, I believe it.

Oh, man.

Over. Over 210 since 2008.

210 million since 2008. I like that.

As a solo independent agent doing every bit of the process yourself, that's pretty solid chat.

I feel pretty tired doing that. I am really craving Chick Fil A right now.

Well, you should get some.

I should. It doesn't help that you guys brought in a truckload of Chick Fil A today and nobody ordered me anything at.

Least once a week.

But anyway, at least. At least. At least once a day. Okay, so what are we talking about today other than Chick Fil A and those juicy chicken nuggets with that Chick Fil A sauce.

Somebody's gonna end up going through the drive through that's listening to this striking appetite with the bell. That's true.

Because we have so many people that listen to us in their car, and they're gonna go, oh, we're gonna take a Chick Fil A along the way. Okay.

I want to talk about what sells for agents when they're gone. Advisors, agents, whatever it may be. And I want to share a story real quick if I may.

You may. Is this one those really long stories that could have taken a fraction of the time to tell. Are you going to be.

I'll try and be to the point.

Let's be to the point on this.

One for we call it leave behind kit.

Yes.

Right. Because it's a, it's a folder, it's a kit that you are leaving behind with your client.

Right.

That's what you leave behind does the selling for you when you're gone.

Right.

It's interesting to me because we do, we have advisors that listen.

You work with advisors, you help train. I mean there's so much that goes on. I mean between us and advisors and us and insurance only guys, agents. Right. What's funny to me is that while you are an insurance only agent, right.

You.

You specialize in safe money. I mean that is your niche. That's your specialty. The leave behind kit was actually inspired by an advisor. If I recall the story correctly, when you were explaining to me how this came about.

I do.

You were very early on in your, in your kind of annuity sales journey and you came across a client, had a, had a broker, had an advisor and they had this nice leave behind kit folder and all this stuff. And at the time you didn't have anything.

Well, I had a black folder that I bought from Office Max and then I printed out a sticker with my information on it and I stuck it to it and I stapled my business card to that. I go and I see, I think it was Ing, which you can tell that was a while ago. Ing and Vanguard, I think, I can't remember exact. And their folders were nice. Yeah. And I'm sitting there going, I don't have a chance. I mean I know more in this situation my product was better. But in actually that client did end up using me. Sure. But in my mind I was still going, I don't have a chance. I have got to step up my game. I've got to show that I'm professional, that I'm just not a fly by night organization. And so I spent a lot of money getting the leave behind kits put together and making sure I had professional branding. I mean, I mean I didn't just go buy some clip art now I clip art on my little sticker.

Yeah.

But I had it professionally done. I spent I think my leave buying kits range from 20 to $30 per kit and that's whether they buy or not. I just leave that with them. But I don't want to go in there and look. I mean that was once I got my lead behind kit. I don't care who you are. What if I meet with you, I am leaving the kit behind with you.

That's right.

I don't care if you have money or not. And if I get there and I find out your situation doesn't work, you're still getting behind it. Yeah. Granted it's a $30 business card, but the reality is most people will throw away a business card. They don't throw away those kits and they will share them with their friends and they'll pass them on even if I can't help them or if I have helped them. I went to clients houses six, seven years later and I still see that leave behind kit there. So it just sits on their shelf and with their other books and they said they pull it out multiple times. So. Yep.

It's interesting to me because so many agents, and I use that word specifically agents, because it's. You don't see it as much on the advisor side. Typically those guys, they're going in with all their nice stuff and that's just part of it. On the agent side where you really are running your own business, it's imperative that you use these things. You need to have a leave behind. And it's not something even that really distinguishes you from the advisor. It distinguishes you oftentimes from other agents.

Absolutely. Because all the time. Yeah, yeah.

From other agents.

But still, I would say If I run 40 appointments in a month, I still will probably see one or two other company brochures.

Sure.

No leave behind kits, no books.

Yeah.

I mean I can't. It's so rare I ever see that in an entire year.

Right. So yeah, it's interesting because on one hand it's. You have to have one if you're an agent, you have to have one to compete with your. The advisors that are doing the risk.

Not even competing. That's the thing though, it's not even competing because competing implies they're also having a kit that you're competing against. And they're not even bringing kits. They're not doing illustrations, they're not bringing brochures. They don't have a book that they leave behind. Yeah, they just. It's whatever they meet with on a little scratch sheet of paper.

Sure.

And it blows me away how many people. And you could say, well, this is more specific to my area. No, I've been in Denver, Colorado Springs, Northern Colorado. I've been all throughout Texas. It's the same thing. I run into everywhere. I've been to Pennsylvania, Virginia, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona. I mean I've ran appointments in all these areas and I run into the same Louisiana. I mean I've been everywhere and I.

It's rare for an agent to use a leave behind kit. It's rare, it's common if you're an advisor, it's if you're just an. If you're a life only agent, that's a rarity. So you have to have it to compete with the brokers and it actually distinguishes you from other agents. So it's. To me it's a no brainer. Get a leave behind kit if you don't have one. Now I want to talk about what do you put in it? What do you put in the lead behind you? We don't have to get into specific.

Documents, definitely documents that pertain to the current market conditions and then historical market conditions. I still have articles from 2008, 2009. Why? There's an article that I have now. If you're part of our organization, we have all that that you can just print out. But it's, it's from 2009 and it talks about how safe insurance companies are.

Right.

And it's from an institution that doesn't promote our products. They just talked about, you know, I think the article, I can't remember it was in the low of. The low of 2009 and it talked about how safe insurance companies are. So I have an article there that talks about when things were bad. Right. Current situations. And then I go into. I have a copy of my insurance license. I'm a member of the National Ethics Association. I have all sorts of. I have a copy of my book in there. I have different charts that will really help people in English understand how their product works, not financial lease. And so that's primarily what I have in those. I mean, obviously like you said, whether you're part of our FMO or you're part of our training agency, we, we have everything laid out.

Yeah, you're exactly right. And I would say another key thing to look for there, and you've mentioned this to me before, even as I've spent time looking for documents, the fact finder is ever evolving. We know that. If you don't know what a fact finder is, you can listen to another podcast where we talk about it. But the leave behind kit is one of those things that can be adjusted and amended and added to as well. So in my time looking for other documents to add into that kind of thing. One of the things that you've mentioned to me is very important is finding documents that are written by people that typically don't necessarily have the nicest things to say about annuities, that now all of a sudden, they're saying some amazing things. So I'm still looking for something from Fisher Investments that has something good about annuities, but can't find anything there.

I'm gonna pass on that refrain from not saying anything, but anyway. Yeah, it's true. You know, when we. I mean, I could find the national association of Indexed Annuities to write all sorts of positive things about annuities, but I generally use organizations that don't promote our products or we're not high on their list. And then the other thing I'll find is institutions or people that are just number nerds. You know, they don't promote stocks, bonds, mutual funds. They don't promote annuities. They're just economists that understand the history of guarantees.

Sure.

And obviously, if you're talking about someone who is in the history of guarantees, they're going to be someone that doesn't promote products. They're just using numbers. And to me, remember, I don't sell off of emotions. I sell off of facts and statistics. And that's really what it comes down to. Emotions obviously come with that, but the client determines what kind of emotion they want to put with it. So if I say, hey, you know what? Statistically, only about 30% of people 65 or older have their home paid for, you know, they put whatever emotion they want with that.

Right.

But when somebody does have their home paid off and they're 65 or younger, I shout them to the moon. Right. I'm going, that is so incredible what you've done. Because it's very rare. You are in the minority of people that actually have their home paid off.

Right.

And of course, it's a big response. Like what? So, yeah, for them, it's like, really? Yeah, exactly. Just common sense.

Right.

I mean, I'm excited because I only have think I have three years left on my home and I just turned 48 years old and I don't want debt. I'm just, you know, it's so many people I've seen retire with less money because they don't have high debt. And that's where I want to be. I mean, I don't know if I'm ever going to retire. My brain just doesn't have the capacity to do That. I mean, I'm watching Godzilla versus King Kong yesterday, trying to relax, because I'm trying to feel a little better. And also business ideas and ways to implement a new process starts going through my head. And so I pull out my computer and my wife comes out. What are you doing? You're supposed to be relaxing. I'm like, the brain turned on.

Yeah.

Something about Godzilla taking on King Kong gave me a great idea. You know, I mean, it's like, I don't know, maybe it's the fixed guy versus the variable guy. I don't know. Which is Godzilla, which is King Kong. Well, Godzilla clearly won, but you know that. Oops, sorry. Spoiler alert. So. But, yeah, so, you know, always use your facts. But that Leave Behind Kit allows information to be presented that's for you or for them while you're gone.

Absolutely.

So illustrations go in their product information, everything that's necessary for them to build their case for or against the annuity.

Absolutely.

And like I said, people can build their case against annuity. Guess what? I don't care. It's their money. It's their decision. It's not my money. So if they don't see the benefit, that's okay, right? I don't get. I rarely get emotionally bought in anything. You know, people have often said I'm kind of like a duck. You know, I have multiple layers where, you know, you throw water in a duck, it just rolls right off. And we were in. We were in.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We went up to Yellowstone, and it was negative 32 degrees. And guess what? There's dumb little ducks swimming in that water right there. And it doesn't bother. Why? Because they're insulated, and they don't allow outside environment to bother them. So to me, that Safe Money Kit is in, basically, it's outside environment, but they determine how they want it to affect them. They determine what it does for them. But you got to have those.

Absolutely. You got to. And I love it because you can mix in articles and graphics, documents and pictures, meaning mix all kinds of stuff to contribute and kind of actually speak to a bunch of different types of people that learn different ways. Here's one question I have for you because I've been talking with agents about the lead behind KIT lately a lot. And one of the things that I'm coming across is agents feeling like their clients are not actually opening Leave Behind Kit. Do you feel like your clients actually read it? That's a great point.

I mean, why does it matter? You did your due diligence. I Always go over the kit with them. Sure. So this is what we have there. If they want to open it or not, that's fine. What if they choose to open it two years down the road and they go, oh man, yeah, this is why I did it. It doesn't matter. The point is, is you presented the information. I mean, I just went to go and get an eye exam today. Did I read every little thing on that? No, no. If they would have came at me with a fork into my eyeball, I might have said something. But you know, I didn't read all the disclosures and everything that I just trusted that the doctor knows what they're doing.

So don't get all worked up and caught up in the idea of your clients not actually doing it. It's a twenty, thirty dollar expense if you print them out really nicely, but at the end of the day it's a worthy expense.

So what, what cost you more to spend $350 on a lead and not get the sale because you didn't present the right material or spend an extra $30 for the kit that helps you take care of $300 lead?

Absolutely. Yeah. Sorry, I mean, yeah, do what you need to do to set yourself apart. Don't be cheap.

Yeah, don't be cheap. I mean, I know this is harsh and well, I'm just barely getting by. No, don't buy Starbucks for a week and then you can pay for one kit. Yeah, actually take that. Don't buy Starbucks for two days and you can pay for that kit. God can believe I tell your money.

What to do if you're strapped or.

We'Ll tell you what to do. Absolutely. Okay guys, leave, leave behind kit. Get a leave behind kit every time. So I hope this helps. You have a great day and happy selling.