Transcription
My average spend per Workshop is $2,000.
Hey everybody, welcome back to Annuity Fundamentals. I'm your co-host, Kylie Mot, with Ryan Anderson. Today, we would love to welcome back Roy Snarr. We had him on an episode a while back, and we loved him, so he needed to come back, and he did. So, thank you so much, Roy, for joining us.
Ryan and I just had the pleasure of being at his event last week, and we were just talking about how beneficial that event was. You go to a lot of different, um, insurance events, and sometimes they try and sell you, and sometimes they pump you up, and you're like, "Yes! I can't wait to change my life!" and then you get home and you're like, "How do I do that again?" Well, at Roy's event, he gave you the how. It was phenomenal. So, two days of great training. So, thank you, Roy, for having us, and we're excited to hear what we, what we can get from you today. We're going to go over some workshops and what to do and what not to do, and Roy's, he's the man when it comes to workshops. He knows how to put them on. So, we're going to get some information from him. So, thank you so much, Roy, for joining us again.
Hey, thank you. It's great seeing y'all out here in Texas as well. Now, no, the thing about it is, Roy is not just the man when it comes to workshops. You're the CEO and founder of AnnuityProducers.com, which is an amazing site. You're also have something to do with the new Annuity.com rollout that's going on right now. Um, you're based in Austin, Texas, 15 years in the business. Your, um, agency does over $100 million a year. We were there last week, and you're sharing your story of, you know, you moved from a moped to the garage to now a hundred million dollar a year. That's a great story. And, and you were, and you were talking about the how, um, seminars were a key part of that. Yeah, I want to focus on that here. So, we've got about 30, 40 minutes here. I'm dealing with Medicare. I want to get into the annuity space. I want to get into the seminar space. Walk us through that. Give us the secret sauce here. How can I do that?
All right, cool. Thanks. Yeah, you know, if I could go back in time, which we can't do that, right? I would have done seminars and workshops way sooner. I, I intentionally delayed them because I was, number one, intimidated to speak in front of people. Me? I seem like it. I'm very outgoing, but in the very beginning, I was like, "What am I going to say? I don't know that much about this topic." I was kind of intimidated. So, I let fear get in the way, and that's what I try to instill in most of these agents. Like, look, don't be afraid. You're going to probably mess up your first couple of seminars. That's okay. As long as you go up there and like, say something absolutely crazy, no one's going to be really mad at you. You might not get a lot of business, but they're not going to be pissed off or mad at you, right? But if I could go back in time, I would definitely start doing the workshops. And what we tell all the agents, you got to find a topic that you're competent in, because we've had agents do workshops on Social Security and they couldn't even answer simple questions about spousal benefits or anything. I was like, you don't want to be the bait and switch guy, 'cause there's so many people out there that will do a workshop and they'll say, "Social Security or Medicare or something," and then they talk one or two minutes on that particular topic, and then they go right into assets under management or annuities and everything else. Nobody likes it. Number one, find a topic that you're competent in. And what we recommend is doing a workshop based on Social Security or Medicare. And the reason for that is the cost to get people in there is a lot less. Can you imagine the expense to get 40 people even registered and maybe 20 show up if you said, "Hey, learn about annuity and annuity income"? It would cost you $10,000 to get somebody in there, right? Yeah. So, if you do a topic that's relevant to people, they have to make a choice on Medicare, they have to make a choice on Social Security. So, it's a lot less expensive. And mastering one of those two topics is not that complicated. I mean, in the very beginning, I literally watched YouTube on Social Security and then I went out and got a professional designation in it so I could have some letters behind my name and then, two, actually really understand how the system works. And then I end up writing a book about Social Security. But I chose Social Security because I was like, I don't really want to get into Medicare. This wasn't my thing. Uh, I don't sell Medicare today, but I always had a fascination with Social Security and a great story behind it, which is my mother, as you all heard during the event, where that was the only check that we had at one point. And so, I have a great way to tie in my passion for understanding Social Security and the value of it. Plus, Social Security is just a giant annuity, essentially. And so, tying in the other annuity concepts and guaranteed lifetime income is easier to do than it is to go from, say, Medicare, life insurance, straight into the annuity. So, uh, going back, I would say pick a topic. Social Security or Medicare is going to be the least expensive to get people in, and then become a master in that.
I appreciate you saying that. You have to have a, a competence, right? You need to know what you're talking about. You can't just go in there for two minutes and say, "Okay, well, that's all with Medicare, but here's what else I do." Right? That bait and switch can be dangerous. But you're right, if you're having, if you're, if you're saying, "Hey, we're going to talk about Social Security," and you're only talking about it for two minutes and then you can't answer any questions, you probably shouldn't have a presentation titled "Social Security" because then that puts people on their heels, like, "Okay, wait a second." And at the end of the day, we're educators, right? So, we're wanting to be honest and say, "Hey, let me educate you here." And what did you say before? Uh, "Social Security is what? An annuity?" Right? Yeah. So, once people love that and they love that language, then you just say, "Hey, you love that check that comes every month? Let's talk about another check that could come every month." So, let's set you up with that. And it, like, really gets people thinking, like, "Oh my gosh, okay, that's how I can distribute this." And so, it's all about having those conversations. And language is so super important. When people say, "Well, I don't like annuities," well, you better not take your Social Security then. Just don't even file for that, right? All right. So, Social Security, I've, I've mastered Social Security. I've gone through, and I've got to tell you, one of the things about that training you just went through in this, uh, event we had, that Alliant came on there, and I was not aware of again, and I've used Alliant for years, that they had a whole bunch of other information on there that are not, uh, no cost to agents that are out there doing it. And as I dug, since that event, you've got your book, they've got the YouTube stuff. There's a lot of material out there that you can find. If they don't have the means to go out and get, I think the R, RSSA, is that the designation you were talking about? I'm trying to pull it from memory, which totally worth the money. But if you don't have the means to do that as you're starting out with a lot of agents, I mean, it's all right, or gas this month, which one am I going to buy? And kind of go from there so that you can become competent with free information that's out there.
Yeah, I mean, the tools are all there. It's just agents, agents are naturally lazy, right? Let's be real. So, the tools are all there. Like Alliant has that, Nationwide, a lot of big carriers have these Social Security. There's a free one, AIG Direct, I think it is, or AIG Social Security calculator. Social Security Savvy. You can just Google that. Anybody can run on, run a report, right? It's free. But, I mean, having a professional designation such as the RSSA is very invaluable because, uh, they actually have software that goes with it. And people say, "Well, yeah, it's a couple grand." Because, if anybody wants it, we have a partnership with them, they get a discount. It's only like $1,850, but that's one time. It's like, if you sell one small final expense policy, you could probably pay for it. And we're talking about annuities. Like, if you're going to be in this business to make millions of dollars, it's not free. You got to invest into yourself and learn the actual systems. Yeah.
So, absolutely. So, let's go ahead and talk about some of those systems. Let's get into the seminars. Yeah. So, um, and one of the things I'd like you to focus on, the daytime seminars, because there's all sorts of companies out there, they're going to talk about dinner seminars and event seminars. You've managed to crack that nut. You've been able to do, have success with daytime seminars. Tell us about that.
Yeah, so in the very beginning, I was doing evening seminars because it is easier to get more people to your workshop if you're hosting it after work, 'cause most of the Social Security seminars, they're targeted for people who are say, 58 to to 70, right? Some are in that ballpark range. A lot of people are still working at that time frame. However, what I started noticing is that if I did a workshop in the evening, people were kind of burned out, they're tired, there was traffic to get there, they're thinking about going home, getting dinner, tomorrow, blah, blah, blah. But more importantly, I was setting an expectation that if I, I would meet with them in the evening. So, what would happen? They would, they would, you know, call us and book appointments and everything like, "Well, we, we did the workshop at 6:30, and so we need you to come to our house at 6:30." And I'm like, "I'm not going to do that." But you did the workshop at 6:30. I was like, "Okay, I see what's happening here." I personally didn't want to deal with that. And so, we do hours anywhere between 11 and 1 o'clock. We try for 11 or 12, that way they can take off lunch early. And it's a, and it also has a higher level of intent to come to it. So, it's more difficult for people to come to. Yes, we get less versus doing it at 6:00, 6:30. However, the people that do show up, like I talked by Ryan, one, five days before Christmas, the people that actually do show up, there's a higher level of intent and need, generally speaking. And then if they don't expect me to meet with them at 6:30, I did my workshop at 11 or 12. I'll meet you with you during the day. Well, will your doctor go come to your house at 6:30 to check on your knee? That ain't gonna happen, right? So, that's how that's one of the main reasons why we did that. The other tip I learned is that at least in my area, when I do a workshop, a lot of these programs will promote a two-day event. They'll say, "Hey, it's a few thousand bucks and you get two days out of it." I did that for about a year, but what I noticed is that I'd either have one day with nobody, and or the second day would be just jam-packed. It wasn't like it was never even, right? So, what I started doing is just marketing for one day event at a time, and then I'll do two workshops a month, and I'll just pick different locations so I don't saturate the, the area. I just do it one day, one time. And those that can't make it, that's okay. We send a video, we follow up with them, we throw in our drip system. And ultimately, when we call to confirm if they're coming, if they can't make it, then we book one-on-one visits with them. So, I personally like the middle of the day. It filters people out, doesn't set the expectation that I'm going to be meeting with them in the evening, and it works out really, really well for us. And we've been doing that now for over three years.
That's amazing. I think you said something that's very key, and I hope the agents are listening. You follow up, right? You're going to spend all of this money, spending it on ad, by, uh, trying to market your event, and there are going to be people who say, "Yeah, I want to go," and then life happens, so they can't. So, what did you do? Oh, I followed up. I put them in my drip system. When you do that, they're getting texts, they're getting emails, you send them a video, right? You're showing them, "Hey, this has a benefit." So, maybe, and then you give them a little taste of that benefit, and then you reinvite them to the next one, and maybe they can make that one, or lucky you, they book an appointment without even seeing the seminar. So, that's really important for agents. And you're right, we are lazy. That, that's just the truth of it. And you have so much going on, and you're trying to fill your calendar. Well, let your CRM work for you too, right? That's why we have tools. Put them on that drip. You paid for them, right? You paid for them. You, you're, you're advertising. Why would you just let it go? Oh, they didn't show up, they're not interested. That's not true. Maybe they're not interested in that second, but they still need the information, otherwise they would have never clicked. So, I think having that in your mind of, you know what, maybe I'm not the best at following up, but my CRM is, and I can just plug them in. That and that can be automated. So, I, I agree with you, agents, we can be lazy. We, we have a lot going on between booking appointments, enrolling people, following up with the application over and over again. So, the follow-up can be difficult. That's why it's important to have a CRM or something that works for you and with you to get those people re-engaged.
Yeah, 100%. Yeah, yeah. One, a coup. So, let's get into that. A couple different things here. So, let's, let's get into the meat of this. You talked about, so 11:00 to 12:00, 1:00 in the afternoon. So, people that are able to come on their lunch break. How old are the people you're targeting? Are you using social media or mailers to get a hold of them? When I was out there, the, the, the lead generating system or the, the follow-up system, talk about that. That was an amazing system with a lot more meat behind it with Annuity.com and things like that. But talk about the, the budget, the how you fill the room, um, how long is the seminar, all that stuff.
So, what we do, the seminar, we try to keep it like 45 minutes long. And there's a lot of intent to that because after an hour of somebody talking, as entertaining as you may think you are, people get bored, right? I, I, when my first couple of workshops, it was like two hours, man, and people were fading after the first hour, and I'm like, "About ready to do cartwheels with my shirt off or something, you know?" I just couldn't get, you know, keep them engaged. I was like, "Wait a second, if I can't explain the concept within 45 minutes, I'm doing something wrong." And most of the time, people that come to the, the workshops, they don't remember anything at all. They, what they do is, it's a filter. They're going to say, "Hey, you know what? I, I like Ryan. I like Kylie. I like them. I want to work with them." I don't care about this power, like my PowerPoint. I give it away to agents for free if they want it. You don't even have to be in our hierarchy. I'll just give it to you. I don't care. And it's just a bunch of screenshots from different places online, and it's not even fancy looking at all. I mean, I built it myself years ago, and I've used the same one for like, I think four and a half years now, this the same one, right? I just update the numbers on it for Social Security, but it doesn't have to be fancy. So, a lot of us like to overanalyze. It has to be perfect. It doesn't, right? And so, by me doing it in the middle of the day like that, my average attendee, the average age is 64. That's just what it shakes out to be. I mean, the marketing on it is from 58 to 70, generally, and sometimes they do marketing a little bit beyond that, which kind of blows my mind because after 70, you already have the benefit. But it seems it works. And so, we use a couple different providers. Uh, going back to your other question, direct mail. Here, here's the pros and cons. Using direct mail is by far the best way to get the highest qualified prospects there because direct mail allows you to do income filters, asset filters. There's much more data that's available for access via direct mail. Facebook is great as well, but you can't put in specific income or asset filters. I mean, there's other back way, he tech nerds know how to figure it out, but at the same time, it's not like 100% clear on everything, right? And so, by doing it with, uh, Facebook, it's less expensive, you can get more people in there, but then you also get a mixed bag of the type of folks that are there. So, sometimes what we'll do is a direct mail campaign piggyback with a Facebook campaign. But lately, we just been simply running Facebook. And, uh, right now, we're using, uh, a newer company. I'll say their name. I don't have an affiliation with them, uh, or anything like that. It's LeadJig, and we're testing them out because they have a good follow-up process that's automated as well, which is good. They have a custom bio page where people can actually see who you are when you go there. And then we also will use Lead Concepts through Chris Weir for all of our mailings, right? And so, the mailings are important too, because what we ended up doing, to your point, Kylie, after this workshop, if they're not there, right? We're going to throw them in our drip system, and then we'll also, if we get their address, we'll mail them marketing pieces every month about Social Security or retirement planning topics. So, we constantly drip on them. I told a story on stage that we had a guy come to the seminar, didn't even answer the phone, nothing for four years. One of my first workshops, ends up booking an appointment with us because he got an email from our Lead Pro system. That email generated a half a million dollar rollover. It didn't cost me anything. I mean, it's just part of the email drip, but it took four years for him to become ready. I have another lady I've been working on for three years. This is just as of yesterday. My mom calls me, she goes, "Hey, you remember her?" And I go, "Yeah, I remember her." And my mom watches her grandson at Sunday school. My mom helps teach Sunday school. And she goes, "She gets your emails twice a month. She reads every one of them, but she's not ready to meet with you yet." I was like, "That's okay. At least she's not unsubscribing." So, eventually, something will happen. So, that's one of the valuable systems that we offer through Annuity is a, is a proven email drip platform that it's done for you. Like, if I had to write the articles myself, they would not get done. I get too busy, and I'm just too lazy to write an article. It's just the truth. And so, when it's automatically done for us, then I don't have to do anything. It's on autopilot. And it costs less than a Constant Contact or a MailChimp account. And so, but they don't do anything for you. This is automatic. It drips on them, and then we get business from it. We have a whole dashboard. We can log in and see who's clicking on which articles, and we have an opportunity to then follow up with them. It's really good.
You know what, Roy? I got to say, I love that you're real. The first time you were on, you said it took me five years to figure this thing out. It took me five years to make a six-figure income. And you just told us it took you, it took four years for that prospect to be turned into a client. So, for those new agents who are getting on and they're saying, "I want to make a million dollars," it takes time. These annuities are not final expense. They are not Medicare. They are a beast, and they take a, they take time. So, I think with new, newer agents are like, "I want to break into this business." They have false expectations because of people on podcasts or on stage were like, "I did this in the first three months." Those people are exceptional. I mean, those are those are the outliers. They are the exception to the rule. They are not the rule. So, I think it's important for you as new agents to understand, it took Roy five years, and he's phenomenal. He's now doing 40 million a year. Like, are you kidding? It t, but it takes time. He's been doing this for 15 years. Ryan's, Ryan's been here for 10. I've been here for five. So, as you, as you're watching this podcast and you're thinking, "Why am I not more like Roy? Or why am I not like Ryan or Kylie?" 'cause you're, you, it takes time to develop you and do and stay in your lane. Do what you're good at and just continue to chip away. You will get there eventually. But if you think you're going to turn into Roy Snarr in six months, you will set yourself up for a loss. You will be disappointed, right? It takes time. Four years, four years for a prospect to turn into a client. Right? But what didn't he do? He didn't stop. He put him in an automatic drip campaign that he's getting hit twice a month. Roy didn't know that. That was all his systems. So, that's why it's important to have systems in place to help you get there. Because now, then he rolled over what was it? 400,000, 500? Yeah, 500,000. I mean, that's phenomenal from a seminar that he put on four years ago. Incredible. I love that. That's probably more than you made in your first year, to be honest. I mean, yeah. Yeah.
You know, a couple other things here that I, I want to talk about. And John Stevenson, one of the guys that was that you're think, we, he was amazing, and he was at the event. And again, three years into the business, but in first year, 2.5 million, second year, 10 million, third year, 20 million. But the guy had 40, he, he's had 20 years of experience. He's built and sold multiple companies. And I, I, one of the things that really impressed me about him is he says, entrepreneurs really have got to commit. You've got to be all in, and you've got to be willing to sacrifice everything. If you're really committed to this, you jump out of the airplane and you build your parachute on the way to the ground. That's true. And just, but, and then back Kylie's point here a minute ago of, uh, "All right, I want to be Roy Snarr," which is an admirable goal. Where were you at six months into your career? Oh, yeah, door knocking. So, yeah, there you go. Remember I told the story, I was printing out flyers from the hotels. I couldn't even buy a printer. I was just using the hotel's ink. I'd walk in there like I was staying and print out a whole bunch of papers until they basically kick me out. And I've done, I've done that before. I didn't think anybody else to do that. Speaking of affording stuff, um, the, you've got your presentation. So, we've got it between 11:00 and 1:00, 45-minute long seminar. You're targeting folks between 58 and 70. You're using, uh, direct mail or, um, social media. You'll get more of a targeted audience with the direct mail piece. Social media, you'll get more people in the room. If you do Medicare, that's actually not a bad thing because you can actually have more clients. Some, uh, and if you do final expense or indemnities, there's some opportunity there as well. Yeah. What kind of a budget do you use for your, um, advertising campaigns as a general rule, and how often do you go through and hit the same geographic area, that kind of stuff?
Sure. I do no more than $4,000 per workshop, and my average spend per workshop is $2,000. The times where I'll do $4,000 is when I, uh, if it's before like school break, or I want to have a big pop, or if I'm going on vacation for a while in another month or so, I'll do a bigger workshop and I'll spend a little bit more. But on average, you can accomplish these numbers by just doing $2,000 per workshop. I let it rest for 30 days per location, and it depends on how big your demographic area is, right? If, I, if you're in Downtown Dallas or LA, my goodness, you can do one every single day. There's so many people, so much data there. But in our area, we're north of Austin, so it's a little bit smaller demographic. And so, we just do it to the, that location, we let it rest for 30 days, and we go to another location, and we market with a 15-mile radius.
What's the population in that area? So, you say $2,000, is that social media ad spend or is that mailer ad spend?
That's social media ad spend. So, if, if we, that's including the service that actually hosted too. I mean, these service providers, they take $500 to a thousand or something like that. I don't know exactly. They don't necessarily break it all down for you, but it's just $2,000 per campaign. And we averagely have about 60 people who say they're going to come, and then those that show up, it's between 20 and 25 on average, which is normal, right? I mean, because if somebody's filling out a Facebook at 3 AM in a trailer smoking pot, balls, like I don't expect them to be there on time, right? So, you get a lot of people that will just fill stuff out, which blows my mind too. Some of the very big clients we have, like, "Yeah, I filled out this ad online." It's like, "I would never fill that ad out," but they do, and it works. And so, it, it, it's a mixed bag on who you actually get to come to the workshops.
A lot of times, he, what's a population in your, in your area? So, you're running them once a month. What's the population?
The population that we actually target, there's about 300,000 all around us. About, yeah. So, that's like, and that's like with the 15-mile radius. So, that's big for some people, but it's also really small for others. Like, if you're in a big metroplex, if I did it in Austin, I'd never run, I could do a workshop every single day, same location. But I don't want to set the expectation that I'm going to come to Austin either. I don't want to go down there. We, we sell on the fact that we're local, we're just right down the road, and it works out well for us. And there's only so many hours in a day. Like, there's times where I cannot do a workshop for another month or so. Like, we have one coming up on Wednesday, and then the next one we have is four weeks from now because I don't have time to actually see these people. And so, you'll, that, that's a great challenge to have in your career is be having a calendar that is too full. I'm never worried. As soon as I wake up, my calendar's absolutely. I don't care if this person says it's not the right time for them, or that they, you know, their advisor says that they can self-insure and they're going to make millions of dollars. That's fine. Doesn't hurt my feelings. I got seven other people to see after you. One of them's going to say yes, and that's all I need. That's the other thing these agents need to remember. You just need one, uh, potential sale from a workshop. I've done workshops like I talked about where there were three people there, and it was a couple and then one other random guy, and it ended up rolling over $100,000. And that's okay because I tripled my money from the workshop, even though there was three people there. So, don't get intimidated by that. Just know that, you know, you can make just one sale, and it can pay for 10 workshops.
Okay, so let's go ahead and back to this. So, the workshop, I've come, I've heard your 45-minute presentation. You talked about how you have music playing, you got credence going on the speakers in advance here, and you've got a slideshow of your family up there, so they're getting, they're bonding to you that way. You get into your presentation, it's over. One of the big questions we get asked all the time is, "How do you book an appointment?"
Great question. Now, I do it differently than a lot of other places do. I'm not a fan of walking around or having my staff walk around and say, "Okay, I got Roy's calendar here. Let's go ahead and book a time he's available here." I don't clear my calendar for the week after. I don't do any of that because I only want to meet with people who want to meet with me. And I don't want to be the chaser. I'm the flower, let the bees come to the flower type of, you know, analogy, right? Because if I start chasing people, then I lose control over the conversation. I'm just a salesperson. That's what everybody else does. Okay? So, what we do, we have a class intake sheet form. I say, "Hey, this is actually my, my auto insurance." But anyways, we have a class intake sheet form. And on that form, it says, "I would like information on, uh, Social Security report, copy of the book, you know, reducing my fees, what are RMDs, blah, blah, blah." Little intake sheet form. And at the very bottom, it says, "If you would like to have a second visit." And that's what I tell agents and say in my classes all the time, it's a two-part class. If they could just take this information and use it, they'll book way more appointments. First part is general information. Second part is one-on-one customized information based on your situation. And throughout the presentation, I'm dropping the second part class to them all the time, right? So, on that form, I, when I'm, when I'm closing up the workshop, saying, "Thank you, blah, blah, blah," I say, "Please fill out that form. It's my proof that you were here because I want my tax deduction to have proof that I actually hosted a workshop and gave you some water and some snacks from Costco." And everybody kind of laughs and say, "It's no big secret. We already have all your information anyway." But we're not going to call and bother you and, you know, bang the phones 100 times. You either want to visit with us or you don't, and that's okay. If you want to visit with us, great. Go ahead and just mark that little box, "I would like a follow-up visit." And the best time is to call you. And my mom will call you. I don't make any phone calls. I have my mom or somebody else can call. She will call you to find a time to visit with me. So, again, another filter process there. So, by the time I actually meet with someone, they're like, very high intent. They came to a free workshop. I didn't force them into an appointment. They answered the phone. They said they wanted to meet with us, and then they come all the way to my office to meet with me. So, it's way high focus and intent during my first visit, which dramatically helps instead of me calling them 50 times, "Finally, I'll guess I'll come in."
I, I think that's a great idea. I, I know agents who do it both ways, and it really just depends on personal preference. Sometimes you're right, when you make the appointment right then and there, it can come off desperate. So, if you're saying, and everyone can hear desperation breath or smell it, right? So, especially the client. So, you're like, you, you take a more laid-back approach, like, "Hey, I gave you the information." But when you gave them the information, you were competent, you were confident, and you knew exactly what you were doing. Bang, bang, bang, you went through the entire presentation. So, you showed value. So, I would suggest if you're a new agent and you've been running seminars and no one's booking an appointment with you, then take a look at your presentation because if you're giving them something of value, they will want to meet with you. I mean, you're going to give them, you're right, you can't go into, uh, customized solutions right then and there. You're going to give them enough information to say, "Hey, you need to book an appointment with me because I just gave you the bare minimum, right? I gave you the top of the barrel. Let's get into the meat." Um, so, I, I kind of, I can appreciate that of saying, you know what, I know my value. You just witnessed me for 45 minutes show you what I can do, and that is my try out, and I'm aware that that's my try out. So, if you like me, you're going to book with me. If you're not, I'm not going to beg you either. Because I, I mean, Doug McDermott said, "A no is just as valuable as a yes," and that really has stuck with me. So, I think doing it your way can also put some pressure off of the agent to say, "You know what, if they want, if they want to work with me, they're going to work with me, and I shouldn't have to beg them." But on the, on the turn side of that, you better know your presentation because that is a reflection of how you do business. If you're late, they think you're always late. If your presentation doesn't work, they think you're incompetent. If you're dressed messy, they think you're messy. So, everything in that presentation matters.
So, one question with you, Roy, before we go, where, where are you hosting these? If you're doing a daytime presentation, where, where are you hosting them? What's the location look like?
Top three places: one, public library. Two, community college or university. But the thing I stress about that, 'cause I made the mistake. I did one at a university and I was like, "I'm going to crush it. This is it. I mean, this is college has the best perception. It's education." And then I get there, I do all the marketing because I didn't go to the event first, which we tell everyone, go to the location first, check it out. And it was almost impossible to find the room. And so, we were scrambling with signs saying, "Social Security class this way," and like, you know, going out to the parking lot, flagging people down. So, you want to, if you do a college, just make sure it's easy and accessible. And then some of the colleges have restrictions where you have to show proof of your ID before you enter the campus, like our zoo here. So, we stopped doing them at the universities here because it was just like, a, it would just, you know, you got 30 people coming into a class, they all have to show their ID, it just took way too long. Uh, the other place, uh, is wedding venues. So, during COVID, when the whole world shut down, people still got married. And nobody gets married Wednesday at noon, right? And so, I would call these wedding venues. I'd be like, "Look, I will pay you money to use your space because, unfortunately, everything else is shut down. The world is terrified. And I know that you're still open. So, how about I use your space?" And I bought a projector, a big white screen. So, if you're in an area where the libraries won't allow you to because you're a for-profit company, or the library in itself doesn't have like a good room to host it in, look at some local wedding venues. It's a place of happiness, and people like it. Like, I did mine in a barn out in the country. It was really cool. I had some of the highest success rates there, and it was just literally like wooden chairs inside a barn, and then I put up like a cloth background for my projector. Barely worked, but I had people there, right? So, those are the top three. Do nonprofit areas, ideally. Don't do hotels because it has the connotation of a timeshare, Tupperware presentation. I mean, have I done them there? I have because I was forced to during COVID. The hotels were still open, but it wasn't the same vibe, and it wasn't the same pull rate. So, just do somewhat like a wedding venue, community colleges are usually easy, just rent the classroom. Now, you're a teacher, or the libraries. Small disclosure, he is from Texas, so having it in a barn might not sound crazy to Texans, but if you're from a big metropolitan, they might think, "What's going on? He wants me to come to a barn?" So, there we go. Exactly. Disclosure there. Know your audience. And not all barns are created equally. I grew up on a dairy, uh, there's a difference between a dairy barn and a wedding venue barn. I'm just throwing that one out there as well.
Big time. No. A couple other things here that I, I want to bring up here. We're getting close to the wire here. We need to get ready to shut this down. But you said, "My mom will call you." Do you tell people that Bear is your mom? Do you say, "Hey, my mom works for me. She's going to be the one calling you?" So, that's the first question. And the second one is, that you are going through and kicking against a lot of the norms, the accepted, you have to do these in evening. I'm going to wear a shirt and a tie, and you have to be. Now, I, I want you to stand up and show people your pants, and I want to show the fat belt buckle you know you're wearing right now.
We're on Zoom, so no. I just, I wear, I have my buckle, right? And just regular jeans. That's it. And I wear boots. And I walked out of that meeting, I was like, "I'm never wearing a necktie again." I just decided. I used to wear the, the suit and tie, right? I used to. But it, it was never authentically me, but I didn't know any better. I was like, "Dealing with people's money, I got to look the part." And it works. But I, I always tell people, wear what you're most comfortable with, right? I mean, a polo and khakis is totally fine because you're different. You're not like, you know, some asset manager, per se, or, and you want to be different than everyone else, right? And so, we just rock it just like this, just polo or a rollup shirt and pants, and that works well. I mean, with all different genres. And then, I do have, I say Bear because that's my mom's nickname is Bear, like Mama Bear. We've always called her that since I was a little kid, and all my friends called her Bear. I say, "Bear will call you." All right. And I, I opened the event up with my story about why I got into this, and she happens to be the main reason. So, I say, "Bear will call you." We get to work together still. And people all the time, absolutely love it. They, they love it. She's great at appointment booking because she is licensed, but she doesn't know the product inside and out, and she's just great at deferring it back. And I would tell agents, if you have somebody that's older, like in the Boomer marketplace, and female, it will go a long way, right? Because if I were to try to call, I'm very exciting as a person. I'd be like, "Hey, how's it going? We had a great workshop. When can I get you in here?" And my mom's just like talking about music or something else for like 30 minutes on the phone with these prospects, and then they meet with me. And it also creates an elevated level of perception too, that I'm not sitting there doing everything, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, thank you so much for joining us today. We are definitely need to have you back. We love visiting with you. Uh, the event we had was great. You're having another one next year, so, um, go ahead and the location and the dates are kind of up in the air, but we'll watch for that. As soon as we hear about it, we'll have you back so you can pitch that and let folks know that, hey, this is a great way to catapult your career. But thank you, Roy. I so appreciate the, the candor and the realism here. There's no facades, which is what Kylie and I have both been really impressed with you and your whole organization about.
Thanks so much. I appreciate you guys, and it was fun getting to hang out a little bit here at the event, and I look forward to many more events to come, including yours.
Absolutely. Well, thank you for tuning in. We're Annuity Fundamentals, and we will see you next time. Thank you. All right.
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