Transcription
There is not a single product on the market, in any market, that can do that thing right there. Yep.
Not real estate. Not Oh my, you can get me on a I'm getting you getting you on the soap box here. Often times, stubbornness can prevent us from pivoting when we should pivot. How do you recession-proof your business?
Clients don't like to see zero, but they like to see zero a whole lot more than they like to see minus 5, -10, -20, etc. Right? So I used to say all the time, hey, in an up market we look good. In a down market, we look better.
How often is your passion actually killing your business? Now, I'm not saying don't be passionate about your business, but if you put your passion first in your business, your business will probably fail.
[Music]
For some reason, dude, I've been doing carnivore. I've been eating carnivore all week and I feel like a juggernaut. You feel like more of a man. I I don't know that that was possible. Um, I'm kidding. But no, seriously, I feel so good. I feel so much energy. Um, I feel more mental clarity like going carnivore. My mood. I'm telling you, I haven't been so like, and I hate using the word because joy like transcends happiness, but I haven't felt so happy, so to speak, in a while. I mean, I'm a I'm a happy guy, but this week on and I I don't know if it's related to food or not, but I feel great, which makes me I think interesting. Yeah. Emotionally a little bit more happy. Huh.
Well, with that being said, to carnivore diets to carnivore diets and good weeks and another great week. Yeah. Now, it hasn't healed my smashed thumb, but I was going to say, tell tell the people what happened with your thumb this week.
I shut my thumb in the car door and like the door was flush. It was it was it was latched closed with my thumb inside of it. From I mean you can you you know your middle thumb knuckle there I guess it would be your the one closest to your uh your fingernail from that knuckle forward was in the door and it was shut completely lashed and I turned I didn't realize it at first it it happened so quick and I turned to walk and it like caught me and like pulled me back and I realized what had happened. I I guess it was adrenaline or something. I don't know. But I mean, if you guys are watching, you can see how how swollen that is. That's when the tears started flowing and then like the discolor. Oh my goodness. Yeah, it might be smashed in there. I don't actually know.
How much did you cry? I didn't cry. Thankfully, I did shake it off a lot and the swelling. It has It has done nothing but just keep swelling. Here we are like 2 days later.
You should probably go to the urgent care. It is. It is more swollen today than it was 24 hours ago. Oh my goodness. So, it just keep and I'm afraid of something is gonna happen here, man.
Sorry that happened. Yeah, the whiskey helps. Like, I don't take I don't take any kind of uh pain medication, but I I do oblige in a glass of whiskey occasionally.
Okay. The night it happened, it kept me awake. I like I it was it was throbbing so much that I'm like laying there trying to go to sleep and all I can think about is my thumb that feels like my heart is in it. That's like you could feel the the pressure and the pul Yes. And so I did get up that that night and took some Advil and I went to sleep about 30 or 45 minutes later. But since then I haven't taken meds. Oh man. just but it's a it is a gh it makes me think talking about the pressure it makes me think about like the way that we can often feel like pressure in what we're doing.
Yeah. That's what I love about this podcast is that like it's easy for us to feel pressure in what we're building, the way that we're working with agents, the way that we're, you know, building our company, the way that we're even leading our team, right? All those kinds of things, right? And sometimes it feels like that feeling where you feel the pulse in your thumb. I mean, I've had that feeling before.
Yeah. And it's it's really nice when that goes away, but I think often the times that it goes away is when the perspective comes back. Yeah. Like you probably realize probably have a moment of like slight panic where you're like, do I need to go in to the hospital? Like do I I need to go to the ER or an urgent care right away? Like this thing feels like it's about to explode. Y then you realize like it'll be all right. It'll be all right. It'll be okay. I might need to get it treated. I might need to actually, you know, take some precautions for it to be in in good order.
Sure. But like it's going to be fine. Yeah, it always And no, I did not, for those of you that are wondering, I did not smash my finger with a thumb just so that we could have that analogy. That's just how quick-rained Josh is.
So, yeah, but I but I think about it, you know, like as we're building what we're building, as agents that are listening to this are building what they're building, there's going to be pressure. It's part of it. And it's that whole analogy you talk about like the diamond and how a diamond has to go through intense pressure to be, you know, actually cultivated and curated into what it becomes, right? Everybody's heard that analogy, but it's like you don't often think about it when you're in those moments of pressure. You're like, "This feels awful, right? My world feels crazy." Like all these different things that can come with that, but in reality, it's just often part of the growth process as you're growing into that next thing that you need to be, you know, comfortable, confident in, right? Um it's like that whole, you know, the whole new wine skin thing, right? Like you can't can't put old or you can't put the uh the new wine in an old wine skin.
Mhm. You got to have a new wine skin. So yeah. So you have to continually grow. You have to continually face those moments where you start to at least temporarily feel that intense pressure and then eventually it's not that you just get numb to the pressure, but eventually you outgrow what used to be a pain because now it's a skill. Now it's a thing that's propelling you forward.
Yeah. And I will say I think that adversity is one of the most underappreciated catalysts that we have to take advantage of. And I'll say it because nobody wants it. Nobody wants adversity. But that like that I don't know for some reason that sentence of uh adversity being one of the most underappreciated catalysts that we have to take advantage of. Not have to have to take advantage of. Uh meaning it's a choice. It's something that we actually get. It's like a gift, right? I mean, think about even relationally. I I have said for years that I think adversity is one of the greatest things. It can be one of the greatest things relationally, but it can also be one of the most detrimental things relationally if it's not handled the right way. Adversity can can catalyze or it can destroy. It can strengthen or it can tear down.
Yeah. And it can happen personally, that can happen mentally, emotionally, relationally, physically, it doesn't matter. B in business uh in annuity production, it doesn't matter. Adversity can either catalyze the thing forward or destroy the thing depending on how that adversity is handled.
Yeah. Now, we were talking a little bit about this before and this I didn't even intend for this to come back up, but just how sometimes sometimes we'll look at things that we're working on projects and there's almost a bias toward whether we think it's right or wrong based on how easy or difficult it is. And the bias is on both sides of the spectrum. So, you have you have the school of thought that would say that, oh man, this thing came really really easily. that must not be what I'm supposed to be doing. The enemy must not really be trying to to, you know, hinder me in that. That can't be the right thing. It could be. There could just be a ton of grace and favor on it. And then the flip side of the spectrum is, oh, that thing came really, really difficult. That must be the wrong thing or the right thing. And it's like, no, adversity or smooth sailing, it doesn't really matter. It could be the right thing. It could be the wrong thing. It's almost it's almost devoid of whether or not it's the the right thing or the wrong thing. Whether or not adversity comes.
I think of it in this way. And I'm not a I'm not a pessimist, but I I do think that sooner or later adversity will come. And I think that the reason that sooner or later adversity will come and that everything is not going to be smooth sailing and perfect is because it's it's we're not we're not perfect.
Yeah. We are imperfect and everybody else around us is imperfect. And all of that imperfection creates opportunity for things to not be right. If everything was perfect around us, then we could reasonably expect that everything would be smooth sailing and and no adversity. But that's not the reality of the world we live in.
Well, let's look at our faith, right? Jesus says there will be troubles in this world. Like it's a it's something that he pretty clearly says. So when we when we hit those points of adversity and we're often like, "Oh man, this has to be something that's like bad, right? This has to be a door closing." No, it's just part of life.
Yep. It's just part like sometimes things are hard. Sometimes bad things happen. It's just part of it. Um now it's how you respond in those moments I think that really determines where you're going to end up, right? So people that react and people that just kind of, you know, flippantly like when something bad happens, they either shut down or they, you know, flippantly do something crazy or, you know, whatever the thing could be, right? That's what determines if someone's going to be wildly successful in their life or someone's going to be like ridden with fear and anxiety and, you know, paranoia and all this stuff that something bad's going to happen at any point at any given time, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Like something bad could happen at any point at any given time, but it's okay, right? Because you have all the tools that you need to be equipped to actually handle those things when they come.
Yeah. Same in our in our in our businesses, right? in the businesses of the agents that listen to this podcast, bad things will happen. And I'm not saying like crazy bad things, but I'm saying like troubles, trials, you know, change, regulatory changes, right? All these different things that could happen. We've gone through it. Think about DO, you know, multiple years ago. Do that's come up again this year. Multiple things can happen at any given time. The market, right? Interest rates up, interest rates down, the market up, the market down. It's all over the place. It could be tied to real estate, real estate market up, real estate market down. It it can affect buyer perception of the types of products that we have. Things are going to happen. But how do you business or how do you u how do I say this? How do you recession proof your business, right?
And if you can build a business that's truly solving problems, those are real problems and those problems are not probably going to go away based on economy. Exactly. You're not solving commodity problems or or uh a uh what the way that I like to say this is like you're not solving problems that are just wants, right? They're needs.
So yeah, when a recession happens, the businesses that get hurt are the businesses that just solve want problems like, oh, I want that thing or I want to be able to go do this thing. When it's truly a need, that need doesn't go away.
Yep. So for your clients, your prospects, you know, that need might be harder to solve. They might have to sacrifice more. Like if the market tanks and some someone's suddenly wanting to have an annuity to guarantee that sequence of return risk is not going to totally destroy their retirement portfolio that they've spent 25 years building.
Yep. There is a risk and a a cost for them doing it at a certain period of time. Yeah. So, so if you're not on the on the the good side of that, you're not on the top side of that or that the positive side of that event happening, there's going to be a cost, right? And it's even for a need to happen, right?
Yeah. But I think ultimately if you're in a needs-based business, so long as that need is there, well, then you've got opportunity to actually recession-proof your business so long as you remain agile as a business owner.
100%. you talking about the market ups and downs and things like that made me think of something I used to tell agents and I honestly I don't remember the last time I've told an agent this concept um but it was the idea that hey when the economy is good and the market is good we look good I mean an annuity with a with a with a solid rate in an up market looks pretty good you're crediting something and you've got the peace of mind that knowing that when the market falls, you're still protected. In a down market, we look better. Now, part of that is positioning and framing and having those conversations with clients, right? Because clients don't like to see zero, but they like to see zero a whole lot more than they like to see minus 5, -10, minus 20, etc., right? So, I used to say all the time, hey, in an up market, we look good. In a down market, we look better. And so, it's like it's kind of that idea that, yeah, the adversity es and flows. It comes and it goes, but solving problems, doing the thing the right way, um using the right product for the right situation, it's actually regardless of what happens in in the market scenario, it's it's still a pretty good story.
Yeah. Um but one thing that I was thinking about too regarding adversity and things is that I think adversity creates heightened appreciation for the times when the adversity isn't there. And I'll give you two personal stories on this one with my thumb. I've never realized how much I use my thumb for than having it smashed because now every little thing I try to use my thumb for, I mean, just me trying to get into the office earlier with my keys. It was comical for anybody.
Oh, I'm sure you should have recorded it. But I'm like trying to like fit my key in between my middle and index finger to try and turn it because I literally putting pressure on the on the pad of my thumb is like it's painful. I I never think about that when you're when the thumb is right. You don't think about how cool that is that you're able to turn a key without pain. So the adversity that and it's such a silly example of adversity. There are so many better examples of adversity than a smashed thumb, but it creates appreciation for it when it's right.
I had another one with my pickup, my truck. Um, it failed lifters, caused all kinds of issues with the cam shaft and push rods and all these types of things. And it was like a like a a $10,000 multi-stage repair. Okay. And it's like, oh my gosh, that's that is not fun at all to deal with that. But then it creates appreciation for when it's not happening, right? So it's like that happens and and you think about the fact that for the last five years basically been problemf free and it's so inconvenient when the adversity or the problem or the challenge arises but if you think about it it should create a heightened appreciation for when things are smooth which is actually the majority of the time and here's the irony of that whole situation Josh I think that the more we choose thankfulness in appreciation when things are right, the more that sustains. And the less appreciative and the less thankful we are when things are going right, the more problems we invite. And and and I I'll use like a personal not a personal example of me, but just a a human example. You have a type of person who they're dealing with. Let's just say they're dealing with customer service somewhere and they're frustrated about the situation. and they're frustrated with the problem and so they bring that frustration over the challenge into that conversation and now this customer service rep thinks that they're being attacked or they feel like this person is just after them and that that creates tension. You think that that's going to create the best result or do you think that that probably catalyzes more problems?
Oh, it's for sure going to catalyze the problems 100%. You handle the adversity and you recognize, oh, we've got problems here. we've got we've got something we've got to solve, but I'm going to actually appreciate this person on the other end of the line for what they're doing and how they're trying to help. And I'm going to express appreciation. And it is amazing how much easier it is to get things done being being that way than, you know, the the alternative.
Yeah. Um, and I had that happen this week with a a I a upline for carrier contracts and whatnot where we're dealing with some contracting issues. And quite frankly, this person probably shouldn't have even needed to be the person involved in getting the the problem solved, but I tried to make a point to be overly appreciative to them for what they were doing. And it literally got to a point where you could almost hear the smile. And there was a point where she chuckled over my thanking her again. I and I made it clear. I said, "Hey, I want Laura. I want you to know that I appreciate what you're doing. Seriously, thank you for helping me out with this." And it got to a point for her where she was she kind of chuckled and I was like, "Oh man, we're about to get this thing done cuz now she feels valued in this, right?" It's like there was there was adversity and challenge and problem and issue that needed to be handled. But if you respond to it with appreciation and thankfulness, it goes away much faster. And I think if you choose to live in that place of appreciation and thankfulness, you actually prevent a lot of those issues from coming up in the first place. Not all of them.
Sure. But I think there are plenty that get invited in by a lack of appreciation and thankfulness. I think adversity, it spurs u deep thought for perspective, too. And so you're talking about even, you know, your key scenario earlier with you trying to put the key between. My first thought, you know, in thinking about that whole concept of how do you recession-proof your business? My first thought is you've got two hands. You've got stuff in this hand, but sometimes when when adversity strikes, you have to realize that the things that I have over here, I actually need to move over here so I can use what I still have to do the thing I need to do.
Sure. And so, not to like that's not that's not a super deep way of analyzing something that happened, but like when you're thinking about that, how often in in our business have we had to realize like, oh, we're trying to do something over here when we need to be over here.
Yeah. We've had that many times, right? And truth be told, in that scenario, here's an example of stubbornness. I had the thought of, okay, put your water bottle and your phone and and your truck key in the other hand and open it with your left, right? I had that thought and I subdued that thought on the basis of no, I want to get it. I want to get it with this hand. It was like there was a stubbornness involved and often times stubbornness can prevent us from pivoting when we should pivot, right? Because we want to be right. We want to prove it. And sometimes we we get like a thrill out of the white knuckle like I'm going to get through this thing. I'm gonna figure it out whatever it it might hurt me, but I'm going to do this thing. I've had that. I've had that many times where I'm like all the indicators are that this thing is not right in this moment, right? It's not the right direction for our company. It's not the right, you know, ad to be, you know, putting our money into, whatever the thing is, right? But how many times have have I held that thing being like, well, if we just try a little bit more, if
We just push a little bit harder, then maybe we can actually get there. Yeah.
In reality, it's way easier, way less stressful to just make the move. Yeah. There's many right ways to get to the right place. 100%. That's one right there. Like there's there's not a one way to get to any destination in most cases. Right now, sometimes it is. And sometimes there's only one path to get from A, you know, to Z, but usually from A to Z, you're going to go A to B, and B might have multiple routes, and C might have C to D might have multiple routes, and vice versa. And ultimately, you might do this whole thing here to get to Z. Yeah.
Now, some routes might be expedited, right? Just like when an agent's building their business, certain things do work, and they work most of the time with most types of clients who are in the market for buying an annuity. Sure. Um, but sometimes that stubbornness or that desire uh to pursue like their own thing, their own passion within the business model, right, can make them take that desert route that takes them on a wild goose chase for a while before they realize how to get back to the actual path. Yeah.
Um, and I think that's a really, really important thing. And I I made a post on LinkedIn this week was talking about your passions, right? How often is your passion actually killing your business? Now, I'm not saying don't be passionate about your business, but if you put your passion first in your business, your business will probably fail.
Interesting. Expound on that.
Yeah. So when you pursue the thing that you want first, you're probably not solving the problem that's actually needed. Now sometimes your passion is the solution. Sure. But often our passions are what we want that solution to bring us, right? We want to be doing our passions. So we do we create a business or we, you know, have a solution to a particular business problem, whatever, whatever in the market, right? But often that passion creates a a filtered lens for us where we can't actually see the true needs of the people that we're actually getting in business to solve problems for, right? Because we're too busy looking at our business through the lens of our passion versus looking at our business through the lens of our customers' problems.
Yep. And when we can do that, and we can when we can make that shift and start actually looking at our business through the lens of our our customers' problems. So for us, it's consumers, right, who are in need of annuities or agents who are in need of a better way to provide and solicit that business. Yeah. If we're not looking at it from the consumer and the agents' perspective and we're only looking at it based on our our desires, right? I could come to you and I could say, "Caleb, we're going to make this training platform, and it's going to be the best platform in the world, and you know, and it is, and we're going to do it this way and this way and this way and this way, and agents are just going to love it." That doesn't do anything to address their real problem.
Yeah. So, I could say, "Yeah, agents all they want is leads, right? That's all they want are are lead generation strategies, but what they really need is process, which is actually true. That's actually a true fact. All that all agents want most of the time is, you know, additional lead sources and and all that kind of stuff when what they need is process to maximize lead sources that they have. But if if we stop there and say we know this is true, so we're not going to do anything based on lead generation, we're going to not have any agents in our programs, right? So, but if we can pair that and we say one of the number one things that agents ask for is leads, info about leads, yep, strategies on lead generation. So, how do we actually create a better way for them to do it more sustainably that then we can implement the concept of okay, now that you have this taken care of, now if you really would focus on this, then all of that is going to be astronomically increased 100%. So that's focusing on the actual problem versus just our own passion within it.
Right. You were you were talking about multiple paths to the to the place. Um, and I think that's actually a huge piece, and it ties perfectly into the conversation about leads. So you think about it when you're going from point A to point B, there are different types of people in how they would even go about actually driving from point A to point B. You've got the Chads of the world that are get on the toll road and hammer down 85, 90, 95 miles an hour to get there as quick as they can. Save as much time as possible. I personally am more of a I like the scenic route. I would rather enjoy the drive and what I'm seeing along the drive and it take me a little bit longer to get there than to just blaze through it, still spend a sizable chunk of time and it just be, you know, yeah, fast getting there whatever. Uh, when there's traffic, I would rather tack on an extra five or 10 minutes and not be sitting still. I still like to move, but I like to move steady and I like to have good scenery. So, it's like you have different people, right? Well, the same applies to annuity sales processes. And and when I say sales process, I'm not talking just about the time of you picking up the phone to call and then meet with them and then, you know, present and fill out the application and pending all that stuff. I'm talking about from marketing and lead generation all the way through the entirety of it. You have different kind of avenues and paths to that end. And one path that I think particularly gets overlooked by IMOs in most of the time is the path from type of lead to appointment. So many IMOs will create an internal lead program or you know whatever and they'll try and get all of their contracted agents in to that program or to that marketing system or whatever without considering what that agent wants to do without considering what that agent's skill sets are. For example, I've worked with agents that are jazzed by getting up in front of people and they're good at it. They're great communicators. They're great storytellers, man. You put them in front of 30 or 40 people and they are just come alive. They are jing.
Yes. And then there are other people that that concept is nauseating, right? You have to consider that the guy that that's nauseating for is no less likely to produce. So, if you're an IMO, don't try to force that agent that is not intrigued by the idea of a seminar or webinar into that type of marketing. Find an alternative strategy. So, and it comes up all the time, and if agents listen to this that have asked me about leads before, I tell them all the time, hey, I can give you a list of of leads and marketing programs. You you're working with us in some capacity. That's that's part of the deal, right? We want to get you in front of as many people as as we can. Whether you're part of the academy, the FMO, agency, marketing suite, doesn't matter. We want to help you out in that way. But I think that there's a more holistic, more personalized approach to it. And it requires more time on my part, but I'm willing I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to give you that if you're willing to to seriously consider it. And and then what we'll do is we'll actually break down the budget. We'll look at production goals. We'll look at industry average metrics of uh appointment rate, close rate, and average case size. Or if they know their own metrics, we'll apply those to it. And we'll literally reverse engineer a plan for leads in marketing based on their strengths, their weaknesses, their preferences, their budget, and their production goals. Because I'm not trying to just take John Doe and John Smith, two totally different agents, and force them both into the same marketing system. when it will probably be a slam dunk for one and an absolute failure for the other. I'd rather take a little bit extra time and position the other one to have success too.
Um, so anyways, that's that's kind of my spill on that, but multiple paths to the same end. Well, it makes me think about adversity as well. How often do we do we mislabel the process for hitting adversity? Like sometimes there's just process, right? Sometimes it takes time to build our leads and marketing strategies up. Yeah. That doesn't mean that you're hitting adversity in your business. That means that you're going through the normal process of building and growing a business in the insurance and annuity space.
Right. Right. It takes time to get organic leads coming in. It does. Sometimes years. Now, if you're really good or you have, you know, previous following or anything like that, it might be a year, six months, right? But most of the time, it's not instantaneous. It's not, hey, go create a little bit of content and suddenly everyone's going to be flocking to you to purchase annuities. It's consistent. It's consistent effort over an extended period of time. And ultimately, I think sometimes that can get mislabeled as and I'm just hitting so much adversity in my business. It's like it is hard, right? Like yes, Caleb, it is hard what you're going through right now, but really you're not hitting major adversity. That's just part of the process, right? And so if we could often step back and just almost take some of that pressure off a little bit, go back to that feeling of pressure. It's just part of the process. You are going to go through a process of growth. You're going to go through a process of expansion. You're going to go through a process probably of getting broken down, right? Because you're going to have to break down some old mindsets if you came especially if you've come from a different industry, right? Or another, you know, even another line in insurance, right? or being insurance licensed or even as a financial adviser if you're coming over, you know, primarily to annuities or or implementing annuities just into your portfolio offerings, there's going to be a breaking down of old mindsets to get to a place of new mindsets. That's just part of the process as well. So, if you're listening to this right now, realize that going through a process of growth doesn't necessarily mean that you're constantly hitting adversity.
Yep. Those two things are very different. And if you can realize when you're just in a growth stage personally, um, even financially, right, as you're getting your financials, your cash flow to be more free, less tied up to be able to reinvest into your business. That's going to be part of the process cash flow, relationally, personally, you know, as you're growing and training downline agents. If you're ever going to you begin to recruit and build your own agency, all of those things are going to come into play. And it's just part of being in a process of growing a business.
Yeah, you're 100% right. You talk about alleviating the pressure and bringing some encouragement. I had a conversation literally I mean two hours ago, two and a half hours ago with a lady who is transitioning not out of Medicare uh but adding annuities basically to her to her practice right as another line of business. She has sold Medicare historically. She has received Medicare leads historically and per her statement and I assumed this to be true as well. I brought it up. Her close rate on her Medicare leads is so so high. You're not 80 90%. Right? It's like because when somebody's a Medicare lead, they're 65 years old. They are the right prime demographic for the Medicare. They they've pretty much made up a decision in their mind. like they know this is what they're doing. This is what they're getting. They just need somebody to help them.
Is it you or the next person?
Exactly. Um and so the close rate on those can be astronomically high. Yeah. She doesn't have any background in annuities, but she starts buying these annuity leads and I think she said she bought like 10 or 20 or something like that. And she was talking to me about it and I said I said she she said she felt like she was getting rejected and just no no no no no no you know person after person after person and all this stuff. I'm like well okay there's definitely something we can do with that. But the you know if you're buying leads to write two or three out of 10 in deals is pretty solid. To have a 20 to 30% close rate on the total number of leads that you have is pretty solid. Why? Because at every point of the process, there's going to be drop off. You might buy 10 leads, but you're not going to get in touch with every single one of them, right? So, you might get in touch with seven or eight. And then of those seven or eight that you talk to, how many of them don't actually have a problem anymore? How many of them don't resonate with your call script, so they don't book an appointment? How many of them are already talking with their financial advisor and aren't wanting anybody else to come in? You don't have the skills to handle that objection or whatever. It's like eventually you get down to maybe you're meeting with four or five, maybe six. And then if you go and close half of those people, the 50% close rate, you're looking at two or three out of 10. So I and I told her that and she goes, "Seriously?" And I was like, "Yeah." And I explained the the client, the consumer mentality when they become an annuity lead versus a Medicare lead. Medicare lead, they've mostly made up their purchase decision. an annuity lead, it is far more to gather information and see what's available and how it might fit. Well, especially because there's a lot more options or the perception of options for people that are in the market for purchasing an annuity versus a Medicare supplement plan, you know, or something like that, right? And just hearing that reality, it alleviated that pressure because here she is trying to compare and contrast. I'm norm I'm normally closing 80 to 90% of my leads compared to I've I've actually got legitimate appointments with about 30% of the people that I've talked to. So now all of a sudden there's a lot more hope involved in this in this annuity thing because it's more in line with with industry norms. Now obviously you start doing your own marketing or you're doing seminars, you're doing radio, things like that are going to have vastly different conversion rates and everything but for buying leads that's not a bad that's not a bad conversion metric. two or three out of 10.
Um, and more than profitable. I mean, you look at the numbers across the board, you can be very conservative on on your cases, you know, closing two or three out of 10 and you're going to you're going to turn a a good margin on those. So, it just Yeah, the numbers can bring hope if they're if they're understood, right? And it goes back to the whole perspective thing. You can have two different perspectives on the same result. And if you have if you have this perspective on the result happening and for instance if she says hey 80 to 90% but suddenly I'm not I'm talking to maybe one or two out of 10 when in reality one out of 10 might be low but two out of 10 is now in the range right so suddenly having that different perspective is showing like oh wow yeah this is great right I feel good I know that I'm going to spend you know two three 400 $450 $50 on a lead and I'm going to close two out of 10 and that would be a good starting metric for me to actually pursue right and realize and then from there recognizing this isn't as efficient or as effective as I want to be right so prioritizing learning and growing and she is she's in the academy so she's absolutely prioritizing that but to go back to your point about agents asking often you know what what are the leads what are the leads what are the leads it's like well okay I can just tell you but what does that ultimately do It's kind of like you you give a man a fish, he eats for a day. You teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. It's the same concept. And not that agents don't know how to fish, so to speak. Um, that's not the point I'm making, but it's like to consider only the leads. I equate it and I did this morning on our weekly mentorship call that that would be like seeing on the highway a really high performance car that you like the look of and the sound of and the acceleration and you like the way that it's it's looking out on the road and you you run into them at the gas station, right? You you you pull into the same gas station, the owner gets out, you get out, and you say, "Hey, man, are you running that thing on uh 87 or 89?" It's like, "Well, that's a silly question to ask when you're impressed by the performance, right? because 87 or 89 is not going to have that much bearing on the performance of I would be far more intrigued by what's under the hood. But we deal with I mean we've got Chad and Jesse guys that are writing you know 20 30 million plus a year in annuity premium and the number one question we get what what are the leads what are they you as if how are they doing it right as if it's the leads that's closing the deals for Chad rather than what's their process how are they having calls with people what are they saying how are they presenting the annuity like you want to you want to actually learn what creates high performance get under the hood don't ask about the fuel yeah well and even go into that fishing anal analogy. It's different types of fishing. So, you could go out there with the Zebco, you know, push push reel and it's easy. It's easy to go throw that thing.
Mhm. But it's different when suddenly you're trying to learn the technique of fly fishing, right?
Yeah. And I know that I fly fish and you use the Zebco. So,
Right. No, I use the I use the push the push reel. No, you were you were catching me in my Yes. In my yes mode. I was just ignored. I was seeing if you were paying attention to me.
That's funny. I will add too and and to be fair, I don't get upset. It's not frustrating to me when agents want to know about what the lead sources are, what are the marketing systems because please ask us like that's important. They are good and you should you if you're going to if you're going to be trying to create a high performance vehicle, you should know what kind of fuel it it takes, right? But in an annuity sales process, a lot of that is going to be tailored to you and your goals and your your processes and how you're approaching it. And then we can help refine and train on that if if need be. But you take that out of it. If I were if I were impressed by a businessman or woman and I wanted to know about how they got from point A to point B in their business or in their life or whatever and I were to basically phrase the question in a way that made it seem like something outside of them was the reason that they got to where they are. It's like you go up to somebody that's hyper successful and be like, "Oh man, you must have had you must have had some really wealthy parents, huh? Tell me about your parent. What did your parents do that they were able to set you up so well?" That may not be why they are where they are. What about what they've done and what they're doing? Right? But to assume that it was this outside thing is a little bit of a it's kind of a slap in the face, right? It's like you don't know. And I think of it similar with leads. It's like you see somebody that's a like a massive producer and you're going to ask, "Oh, what leads are you using that?" as if that must be the reason that you're writing what you're writing with little consideration for what they're actually doing with the leads they have.
Yeah. Exactly. Well, and even thinking about what you just said about, you know, going up to a wealthy business person and saying, "Oh, your your parents must be wealthy." I would even say like it would be almost the equivalent of saying, "Oh, your wealthy parents, oh, they connected you to their friends, didn't they?" Like, what do their friends do? How'd their friends help you? Because it's you're talking about a lead, right?
Right. So it's that connection, that business connection. So it's almost in ensuing
Or is it implying that you know, without that connection, you wouldn't have been able to do that thing, right? Which people that are really successful, they find ways to make the connections.
Sure. You talk about it with the—with you know, the going up to the three people every single day and using my whole, you know, my two retirement questions.
Yes.
Right. Because the numbers are to me a no-brainer. If you create three conversations with what seem like your target demographic, okay, and and yes, we are going to bring in some some judgment, I guess you could say. We are going to try to guesstimate approximately if somebody is over 50 to 55 years old and under 80. So, not too hard to do, but also, yeah, it's a little bit—it's a little bit assumptive, but if you are willing to get out of your comfort zone, and here's a—here's a fun line for you. The more willing you are to accept rejection, the more opportunity you set yourself up for acceptance. The more rejection you're willing to accept, the more opportunity you create for yourself to be accepted.
Um, if you are afraid of rejection, you're going to create for yourself little opportunity for acceptance.
Yeah.
Um, so you got to get over that. But if you'll go and you'll create three conversations a day during just the 5-day work week, and you want to tack on the weekends, then great. It drops to two a day. But if you can go and do that—two over a 7-day period, three over a 5-day period, you will create 60 conversations with people over the course of a month. And some of them are going to end as quick as they started. But if 1.6% convert into you getting to help them,
Mhm.
that's an extra person, one extra person per month, 12 per year that you will get to help with their retirement and write business with, which very conservatively equates to 1.2 to 2 million in production. And that's on a low average case size.
Like it's there. It's just—and the people are there, and the people may not be looking. And I would argue that the people that aren't looking are the ones that you don't have any competition for.
Right. Like and conducted as like, go up to these people. You could be in a supermarket. "Hey, excuse me. Excuse me, sir. Can I just ask you one question? I'm in the retirement industry, and I always come to people that are, you know, look like in the next 10 or so years they could be nearing retirement. I got two questions. Obviously, you're on the young side of that, right? But I wanted to just ask you because I—I want to get as much information as I can to be able to actually serve the people that I work with the right way. Two questions, right? What's your biggest hope in retirement?"
Yeah.
Okay. They give you their answer.
Okay. Next one. "What's your biggest fear going into retirement?"
Yeah. Two things. And with that, you gain a lot of insight into how retirees think. That's going to be the fastest way for you to do a survey on how to actually solve that need and that problem that your customers will have. And ultimately gives you an opportunity that if they answer in a way that maybe—let's just say their biggest fear is, "Man, I'm not going to have enough money to—to live." My biggest hope, "I want to travel." Biggest fear, "I'm not going to have enough money to live."
Yep. Running out.
Then what do you do, Caleb? Then you can tell them, "What if—what if there was a way to eliminate your number one risk and guarantee your number one hope?" Like, what if we could completely erase the—the fear and completely guarantee the desire, right? Would that—like, would that be worth a conversation to you? Like, and I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying that that's for sure can happen, right? But would you be open to a conversation if it has the potential to be?
It's like, sure. And I think too, you can make a joke out of, "Oh yeah, I love to—I'm in a retirement space. I, you know, I ask people that look like they're, you know, in retirement or approaching retirement, uh, what—what they're, you know," and you could make a joke about, "Oh, you look like you're probably 20 years away from retiring." Maybe they're like mid-60s, making them sound like they're in their mid-40s. Make a joke out of it, but kind of get those walls down a little bit. I'll get a chuckle. U, but then ask them. And they're two very low barrier to entry questions. And I think we talked about this a little bit last week, but it's so important, guys, that the market is there, the people are there, and they may not know what to look for to find you.
Exactly. But they very well may need you. So, it almost creates an obligation, right, to be looking for them if they don't necessarily know where to find us. It goes back to that—it was probably episode one or two of this podcast, the moral obligation to do the right thing for the people that we're trying to solve problems for.
Mhm. If you truly believe that what you're doing and—and offering annuities to your clients or your prospects, right, or just people in general is actually a great thing for them as they go into their retirement years or for at least some of them, right? Not everybody's going to be a fit. Is it not a moral obligation to do what you need to do to actually get as many people acquainted with what an annuity is as possible?
Yeah. So when you go and have that conversation in the supermarket, you're—it's literally the lowest barrier to entry that you could possibly have. It's market research and potential lead generation. And if you're talking, you said three a day.
Yeah. Three a day. So let's just say one of the—one out of every 10 could potentially turn into a second conversation. You got six new opportunities a month.
Yeah. You're talking one every three days, right? That you could potentially have as a lead.
Yeah. And God forbid all three decide they want to have a conversation with you, and then you just generated yourself three leads.
Exactly. But—but when we talk about the adversity piece, it's like, "Man, these leads are expensive. They're 450 bucks a piece." Go find a way to generate your own leads.
Yeah. Go be a human in a world of humans and like formulate a relationship. Have a conversation.
Yeah. Don't just try to buy a phone number. I've generated a lead over an old-fashioned at a bar.
Was there listening to live music?
Yeah. Sitting there, old-fashioned, old couple comes in, sits down, just start talking. Same with on the airplane.
Me on the airplane. Exactly. It's like just living life, right? Just have conversation with people and—and don't look at it from the standpoint of, you know, ah, you got dollar signs on their—on their head. It's like, no, that's—that's not the point, right? The dollar signs are the byproduct, right, of you helping somebody with a—a problem they actually have and you being able to help solve it, right? It's not somebody having a problem and you being able to convince them that this is the way to solve it. It's not somebody not having a problem and you convincing them that they do and then trying to solve the one that you've convinced them. It's not somebody not having a problem and then you somehow convincing them to buy your—your thing. It's—it's somebody has a problem, and you are able to solve the problem in a way that they see actually solves the problem, and then you're compensated well for it.
Yeah. And think about this. We're—we're talking with this scenario here in a supermarket, in a grocery store, wherever, somewhere out in public. Think about with your prospects. Let's say you're—you're in Medicare or you're in life insurance or doing something else where you're still in—in front of that demographic sometimes at least.
Okay. When you—when you, let's say you're writing the life—life insurance application, you've probably done some kind of fact-finding on them. You probably have a good understanding of their monthly expenses and their monthly income and all those different kinds of things. If you're doing fact-finding effectively, right? So, you already know. So you say, "Hey, also, you know, I always ask two questions for anybody that's in this range," and you—you go into the questions. "Hey, what's your biggest fear going into retirement? What's your biggest, you know, hope going into retirement?" And then if they answer those in a way that that door feels open to you, well, now you've got an immediate cross-selling opportunity where you can now bring an annuity into the—into the conversation.
Yep. And same thing, it's translatable.
Yeah. And this is two questions. It's true. And—and I love the phrase, "I always ask." Number one, it's going to create that neuropathway in you to actually always ask. If you—if you don't say that, you might still ask periodically. But you say that enough, you'll do it every time, you're going to—
Yes. That neuropathway has now been created to where you will actually always ask.
Yeah. Number two, it creates in the person you're asking this idea that you've asked a lot of people. It normalizes the question.
Exactly. And a lot of people have told you. So now if they decide, "I don't really want to answer that," they can still decide that. But most of the time they're not going to because that would make them in their mind the—the black sheep, so to speak, right? They're now the—going against the grain of the norm of what the rest of the people like because you always ask it, right?
Yeah. And when you say "I always ask," it's—it cuts down the walls because it's very—very much like normalizes this concept that, "Oh, this is just a thing that he or she asks all the time. I guess it's part of conversation," and it's a slow intro to a question without the question just being out of the blue, right? "What's your greatest retirement hope?" Right. Well, what if I said, "Hey, Josh, I—I ask everybody, what's your—what's your greatest retirement hope?" That's a whole lot easier into that question than just the boom abrupt.
Yeah. And imagine this. We can be going through, you know, a script or a checklist of, "Okay, we do this, then we do this, then we do this, then we ask this question," but if you're just having conversation, you might be going through a fact-finding process. You might even be closing a sale on a particular, you know, line of business. But there's going to be an opportunity if you've done the things in the checklist the right way. You're going to probably know—are they retired or not retired. If you're doing any kind of fact-finding, you'll probably know that just based on normal conversation with them.
So, Caleb, I know that you said you're retired. Congratulations. And then you go right into it.
Right. So, because of that, "I always ask retirees two questions."
Yeah. "Do you mind if I ask you them real quick?" and you go right into those two questions and then you move on and you plant a seed while simultaneously creating the opportunity to then go and provide them another service, right? Because the odds are very—very—very good that what they say their greatest fear is and what they say their greatest hope is we can actually address.
Cuz what's the number one fear of retirees? The most common fear of retirees is that they outlive their retirement savings, their—their nest egg. Uh, and the reason I think that that's the number one fear of retirees is because for the last 40 years they've seen those retirement counts go—accounts go up and down without them taking withdrawals. So in a weird way subconsciously they understand sequence of returns risk, right? Because they've seen those retirement accounts go up and down. If over the last 40 years they've not seen that—right happen, are they going to be concerned about running out of money? Probably not as much. But you see that up and down movement, and then in your mind you're thinking, "Retirement—that's going to be my income," and now all of a sudden the concept of sequence of returns makes a lot of sense where if you draw from an account that is also taking a loss due to market volatility, you have now compoundedly reduced the value in that account.
Yeah. So now next year or next month or whatever the—the system is set up to be, you have to draw proportionately a greater percentage of that account to have the same amount of income or take less income, which is one—less income and then two—compoundedly less income because of inflation. So it's like, how do you—how do you solve that? You take away the losses and you guarantee the income regardless of market volatility. I mean, you—if you can't—the two—we say this all the time—the two number one like questions that retirees can't answer is how long they're going to live and what's the market going to do. So what do we do? We create a plan that it doesn't matter how long they live. Of course, we want them to live a long time. And statistically speaking, guaranteed income increases life expectancy. I will throw that in there as a free nugget. But we take away the risk of longevity and we take away the risk of sequence of returns and market volatility. And now all of a sudden we've created an income stream that mathematically we know is going to cover their expenses in retirement blended with social security, which has a cost of living adjustment, right? We should be a-ok.
Okay. Right. No problem. No problem. No problem.
Well, and that's—and that's why if we believe that that is true, anybody that is licensed to offer these products, why wouldn't you want to provide this solution to as many people as you possibly can?
Yeah, they need it. If we're in it for them, right? If we're in it for the people that we're working with, why wouldn't you do that?
Yep. There is no other product on the market that can do what a fixed indexed annuity with an income writer can do. SPIA—single premium immediate annuity—entirely different.
Yeah. Bonds—entirely different. Dividend stocks—entirely different. Migas is entirely different. CDs—everything—right. Equity portfolio, index fund, mutual fund, variable annuity, RIA, all of them. None of them address both the two unknowns.
Mhm. And this sounds like I'm just a fixed index annuity with an income writer guy. I'm—I'm not—exp—like that's not explicitly what we use and what we sell. It depends on what the client needs. Plenty of migas, plenty of straight indexed annuities, plenty of cases where it's like, "Hey, there's not really anything to do here" type deal. But the vast majority of people when you ask the questions the right way and you take away their potentially incorrect preconceived notions about the way that income works in annuities, you get a situation where what they need is a guaranteed stream of lifetime income without giving over control of that account value and still maintaining opportunity to credit interest. And what is the only product that can do that is a fixed index annuity with an income writer.
That's it.
Yep. There is not a single product on the market in any market that can do that thing right there.
Yep. Not real estate. Not—Oh my, you can get me on a—I'm getting you on—getting you on the soap box here. But you know what? Like this is to me like—this is what we do for people that—that wonder like, "What do we do on a weekly basis?" It's this.
Yeah. Just directly with agents because we believe in what we're doing.
Yeah. Right. And we've got a bunch of different avenues to do that. We've got training. We've got, you know, all the different stuff that we have. We work directly with the agents, but it's all about this thing here. There's a passion, and this brings it back to what I said earlier. The passion is in alignment with the need, right? So, when that passion—when the need becomes the passion, right? When the need and the solution that we actually provide becomes our passion, suddenly it fuels any other passion that we have.
Yeah. It fuels your cattle business with your brother. It fuels me doing, you know, side business with my wife.
Yeah, it fuels, you know, Chad having real estate partners and doing other real estate ventures. It fuels Jesse doing other things as well. It fuels our employees having lives that they love and that they, you know, look forward to.
Yeah. Because we're actually putting the first thing first, which is the people that we're actually trying to protect, the people that we're trying to provide solutions to real problems for.
It's so good. I love it, man. I love it.
Well, did you have any uh—funny, crazy, wild thing happened this week? Any great stories while we took down our last few minutes?
I had a very full end of the week this week, and it was like big stuff.
Um, really good. My voice is tired today, so I can feel like almost my—my mouth being really dry cuz like literally this morning I think you and I started texting at like 6:00 a.m.
Yeah. you know, this morning.
Yeah. Which is—I didn't anticipate getting—people know at this point that Josh is not a morning person. All right. But I went to sleep a little bit late last night. I woke up super early, earlier than my alarm clock this morning. Um, and just had a full day and I mapped out my day yesterday and I knew it was going to be tight and I knew there were a couple like really big important meetings and stuff that I had. Um, but man, like my voice is even like real tired now because I've been on Zoom calls and—and important ones like partnerships and you know, potential things that we're going to be launching into all day until we started recording this. So, I—I've been glad that you've had a lot to say today because I haven't had to say as much today as—as you told me on the call earlier—you losing your voice. But, it's been really good though. Like, it's been a good week. It's been very full. It's been very fulfilling. Um, and there's a lot of—I'm not going to say anything now. I'll do like a little drum roll. Drum roll—because there's some cool stuff that we're working on right now that—that could be really impactful within the industry.
Yeah.
Yeah. I didn't—didn't really have anything funny or humorous from this week either. I, you know, we started this whole thing with the idea that like it was going to be a lot of stories of funny things that we hear, you know, happen or whatever. And I feel like so far we haven't had just too many of those since yet though.
Yeah. We need to hear from you guys. Agents submit funny stories. My goodness. Find—find me and Caleb on LinkedIn. Josh Delgado, Caleb—Caleb North. Send us stories.
Yeah. It can be something random. It could feel totally irrelevant, but something that was funny to you, and we'll share it on here.
Yeah. I'll read it. I'll read it verbatim on here so that we use your exact language.
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Now, but it's been a good week. Agents, for y'all, I hope that as you listen to this podcast, as you actually just like reflect on your own weeks, that you just realize that we're in this thing to have fun. We're in this thing to—to enjoy what we're doing, you know, to provide great service to the clients that we're working with, to make money in the process, but to make money so that we can go and have an impact in our communities and also in our families, right? To leave legacies for our families. And that's the great thing about this industry is that it's so easy to leave a legacy for the people that we're—that we're working with, for the people that are in our lives. And with that said, cheers.
Cheers. To another great week.
To another great week. I'm empty.
You're empty. Well, I'll cheers you again and then you can pass yours over here and I'll finish it up. My thumb's enjoying that whiskey. We are the annuity fund guys. [Music]