Why The “Nice” Agent Rarely Makes It | 7 Figure Annuity Sales Podcast | Ep. 263

I want to share with you why the nice agent never makes it. I mean, here's the reality. There's a difference between nice and mean. Okay? I'm not saying mean people make it. I'm just saying as a nice agent, they're often way too passive. They're the yes person. They're the whatever you want person. They're like, yes, I'll take that order from you person. And the reality is sometimes you have to say, no, you're not right. No, this doesn't work for you. No, that's not how that works. No, your product or whatever you've been using does not work. So you don't have to be nice. You have to be an expert. You have to be cordial. You have to be honorable. Honorable is the biggest thing because even if someone's a jerk to me, I'm still going to honor them and hopefully help them understand why they need my services and how I can bring them a massive benefit to what they want.

Yeah, absolutely. So I. I love it. I love it.

Okay. This is so welcome to our, our week's show. This is Chad Owen. I host and I'm going to say my co host now. He's been upgraded. Not just boy Wonder, not just the wonder boy, not Robin boy. We haven't pulled out Robin in a while. This is my co host, Caleb North. The reason why I want to express that.

Well, you know what, you are delusional too, so that's okay. But the, the reason why I want to do this, as you can see, you'll see in our new training platform and everything, we where actually Caleb's doing a lot of the explanation of how to start an annuity business, the basics. And it is so in depth and so perfect that honestly, I'm very impressed. And he's going to be doing the vast majority of those. And why? Because he has a simpler way of thinking. He has a simpler mind. I mean, a simpler way of explaining. Simpler mind, right. Simple minded, no.

Simple minded, no.

But he's so good at explaining.

Well that there's a lot to be said about that. That is actually a very, very wise saying. There really is to that. Sometimes we over complicate life and over complicate. Well, we just talked about that last podcast. The way we over complicate the way we say things and then we make people more confused, not only on how to understand something, but maybe our intentions. You know, I mean, it's just important. So when we're talking about being nice, you know, the doctor telling me I was fat, and I always have heart problems. That wasn't nice, but it actually was the nicest thing he ever could have said because it woke me up and realized I was 262lbs. I'm now 52lbs lighter than I was then. And so let's just say that my face would be a little more wider on the screen. My wife, she's so awesome, and she stuck with me the whole way through thick and thin, no joke. Okay, so go for it, Caleb. You're. You're leading the way, maestro.

Well, I do. I do want to just clarify that I actually came up with the title for this. Why the Nice Agent Rarely Makes It. And the point of this is not to insinuate that you should be mean, like Chad already said, because that's not the suggestion. It's simply to say that there are traditional tendencies, characteristics in individuals who are typically considered nice that are not conducive to having high levels of success with annuities. And honestly, in any kind of sales, you know, and I use that term loosely, I consider this. It is a sale technically, but it's a little bit different than traditional sales. I'll say being warm, being welcoming, being a good listener, being empathetic, being compassionate, being kind, Those are also synonymous with being nice. And those are all necessary pieces for you to have when you're dealing with clients and working with clients. The character.

Wait, I want to hit something on that. Caleb, you said being a good listener. I was doing a ride along. This client, our agent was doing a ride along with me, and he goes through the entire day watching me do all these appointments. And he literally goes. He goes, chad, I know why you're successful. One of the reasons why you're successful. I said, oh, really? He goes, you don't listen to anybody. I'm like, whoa, okay, where are you going with this? And I said. I said, where are you going with this? He goes, there's so many people that tell you what they want, but you tell them what they need. So they tell you all these things. I want this, I want that, I want this, I want that. And you just don't listen. You just go directly into this is what you need. And I'm like, dang, that was a really good compliment. I didn't think it was going to go that way, but you know, that's exactly what they meant. They go, you are only concerned about what's best for them and what they need. And I was like, that is a big compliment. So listening is often done without words. So you're hearing what they're saying, but the reality is, internally, you're going, this is what they need. And you're not listening to what they're saying.

I would argue, yeah. So I guess where I'm coming from, my argument to that would be that you actually listen well. And it's because you listen well that you're able to hear deeper than the desire.

Yeah.

So he called it. You don't listen to anybody. What he's saying is you actually listen so good that you hear the need, not just the desire, because the desire is shouting something that doesn't go away for sure.

And how many times do we hear, though, that body language says more than words? You know, actions speak louder than words. You know, an action is not a verbal expression. What you're actually doing is actual. And that's what I want to base everything off of when I'm representing what I do as far as safety and security. Because the only way to do that, though, you can be a broker doing all variable products and you can listen to all day long about what they want for safety and security, but if you don't put them in the right products, including annuity, people using the wrong products for the, you know, they have the solution. Well, I'm concerned about income. Great. Fia. No rider. Fia. No rider. I'm like going, and I actually had someone just recently. Now I'm going to get on a little bit of rant. I just had an agent flat out tell me, let's strike that. Not an agent, a marketer. Okay, so this is a marketer that says you want to put them in all. FIA. So they have no riders. That way, in five to 10 years, you have repeat business. This was straight from a marketer that said that.

Yeah. And this is my issue with a lot of IMO's. Cool.

Oh, my gosh. I said. I said, so you're taking your repeat business over the fact that that client needs something to guarantee income for life? Well, nobody ever says they need income for life. I could get anybody, you know, I've been doing this for almost 20 years. I could get anybody to buy any product based off of the way I present the actual product. But when you ask questions like, do you want to plan for living or plan for dying? What's the important concern? Do you have a concern about outliving your income? Vast majority will say, well, not really, but what if one of you passes away and the lower of the two social securities goes away and they're like, I never thought about that. Or what about when inflation continues to rise? Because we know no matter what it's at, it will always cost more in the future in the long run? Well, I didn't really think about that either. So when you, when you address it, of course I could do any question the way I wanted it. And that's where it's important to understand about listening too. But I can, you know, being a stronger personality, I can go through pretty much any conversation and direct it the way I want it to go. And that's very important to understand that you don't use that. I mean, it's like this saying biblically talks about meekness. Meekness is power restrained. And when you're given a gift to be able to talk to someone about, you know, something you're incredibly passionate about, you want to make sure you're still totally hearing what they need versus what they want. Now want is important, but need far.

Surpasses that if you can.

I want to be able to swim.

You could, but I mean, I think about this. I used to spearfish all the time in Hawaii. I want to be able to hold my breath so long and stay under the water for 15 minutes and not be able to resurface because I want to be able to chase after that fish. The need is, I need oxygen. I'm going to die if I don't do that. Unless I have a scuba tank. Right. You know, I want to be able to fly. I would love to be able to just fly like a bird. I try that off of any building, I'm dead. So I mean it's. Those are extremes. But the reality is if somebody wants something with their retirement, but they need something different, if you go with that one, it literally could kill their retirement.

You're, you're hitting the nail.

I think this horse is dead.

There are, there are five. When I was just thinking through what are these traditional characteristics of nice people that are actually hurtful to high levels of success with annuities and actually high levels of helping clients. Right? Like if that's the heartbeat of what we're doing, then what are these five areas that hinder that? Number one, they tend to be more agreeable by nature, they tend to be more passive, they tend to be non confrontational, they tend to be indirect and they tend to be appeasing. These five things manifest in different ways. So why are they problematic? I'll go through a few, few of these things and Chad, chime in on these. As you, as you have thought. They tend to let the client control the Direction of the calls, the appointments, the products, the timelines, etc. In other words, they don't bring a CL client into a process. They allow the client to determine the process. And now they've got four different people they're working with, none of which end up doing business with them because they're all on their own little tracks and pathways to nowhere, ultimately. So by having that process.

A nice person is going to try and accommodate where accommodating is actually more harmful than good. Does that, does that make sense? Another one is, yes, they tend to avoid correcting misunderstandings because it's. It, it, it feels like confrontation. It feels like, oh, this is, this is a big weighty thing. I don't like conflict. I don't want any kind of trouble. So they'll hear a client say something that is just false, incorrect, and they don't want to correct the misunderstanding because it's confrontational. So then ultimately the client doesn't actually understand things properly. They tend not to solve a problem. They tend to just try and find what does this individual want, which this is something we just talked about, rather than what do they need, and then fight for what they need. A lot of agents that are nicer, and I'm using air quotes on this to describe it, but that's, that's really the only good way I know how to describe it. Right. They will put together a plan for what the client needs, and then as soon as the client, because they don't understand it, rather than correcting the misunderstanding, will shift gears to try and give them what they want in order to try and save the sale. And realistically, if they were trying to preserve whatever life might be there left with that client as a, as a prospect for a deal, they would fight for the initial thing that they put together as a solution to their problem. And then lastly, they tend to place heightened emphasis on unnecessary details of a client's life for the sake of rapport. These are the types that are, that are all about the pets and the grandkids and the, you know, the car, whatever. And they don't actually have anything. It's. Yeah. And it's a, it's a traditionally very salesy approach. And even if, even if, man, I.

Really, I remember back in the day, yeah, I mean, Tom Hopkins, Zig Ziglar, they used to say, you walk into house, you compliment something. That's the first thing you do. And I'm like going, okay, does it mean I don't really like. Because there's been some houses, I'VE walked into where I didn't have anything to compliment. I mean, it's not because it was bad. It's because maybe it was a very flowery grandma's house, you know, and that's just, you know, not me. So how do you find something to complement there? But if your purpose is to compliment because you want to build rapport, that is not nice.

Yeah.

That's an underlying intention.

Right. It's it.

Now, if you generally see something that you like and like, wow, that's really cool, this is great. Or yeah, you know, I saw you went on a cruise. I love cruises. You know, things like that, that's genuine. But anytime you compliment something that's not a genuine, like, like you really like it, that' that's false. That's not right.

Yep. I had a, A security company come to my. When I bought my house, come to my door and they, you know, they always do this, right? The door to door security people. You got your solar, you got your roofers, you got your windows, you got all these different. Right. They come door to door. Anyways, there was two of them. One of them was, I presume, the sales manager for the region in hindsight. And the other one was an in. Like a trainee in, in training. They come up. I didn't have anything going on, so I let them in. We're talking, whatever, and just, just for fun, right? It's like I always like seeing how, how do other people try and approach sales as somebody that's in sales.

They just wasted their time.

No, I bought from them, but I only bought from them because the sales manager stepped in and actually started taking over the deal. Because the, the newbie was trying to create all kinds of relationship and rapport around things they had no context for. He's trying to talk to me about this boar's head that I got from my grandfather and is using all kinds of language and terminology. I could tell the guy doesn't know anything about what he's talking about right now, but he's trying to create some kind of relationship with me on. On something that he doesn't actually care about. So now my perception of this guy is completely ingenuous. This guy doesn't give a rip. He's after my money. Sales manager steps.

I know it's kind of hard.

When he's wearing a PETA pen. That's a dead giveaway, that.

Right.

But it's real. Sales manager steps in and starts navigating this conversation. And this guy, he approached it real. He got level with me. He. He quit trying all the. The weird subliminal tactics of sales and whatnot.

Yeah.

And I was like, okay, now this is somebody that I can actually work with. And we start talking numbers. It works out cool. Did a deal with the guy. I didn't have intent to. I wasn't planning on it that day, but anyways, that's why. Just be real. Be genuine. Fight for what is right. Fight for what is true. Fight for what's in your client's best interest. And don't. Don't get pushed over.

Be strong. Be firm in what you're bringing clients into.