Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 This is annuity straight talk since 2008. Your host Brian Anderson has helped clients nationwide navigate the complex market for annuities with Brian's assistance. Hundreds of clients have achieved a profitable and secure retirement. I would know because Brian has answered many of my questions concerning annuities and retirement planning so that you can benefit as well. Let's get started. Here's Brian.
Speaker 2 00:00:49 Hello and welcome everyone to the annuity straight talk podcast, episode number 45. My name is Brian Anderson, founder and creator of annuity straight talk.com built the website in 2008, went online in 2009. Been in the business since 2003. My journey through retirement planning is well documented. And between 2003 and 2008 or nine, I was learning about annuities, figuring things out. And when I realized I had a really good message and I could help a lot of people, I came online to spread the information as far and wide as I possibly could. It is not again. I want to emphasize the point of this is to give information to people so that they can make good decisions for themselves. I sell annuities to make a living, but my goal is not to sell an annuity to everyone. And I've seen a lot of abuses in the past.
Speaker 2 00:01:50 And a lot of times when an annuity was sold, where it was not needed. And in, in many cases where it was actually detrimental to the individual's financial situation, I want to avoid that at all costs. I choose to take an approach where I will inform, advise, educate as many people as I can. Those who find the annuity useful will decide to buy it themselves rather than to have me sell it to them. So earlier this week, I've had several guests on the podcast. We're on episode number 45. So we're just getting started, but well, entrenched. I would say I do appreciate those who have listened regularly. I really enjoy the opportunity. It's really fun. Honestly, the funnest part of this is, you know, yesterday I was driving on the road and a guy from New York just called me and said, Hey, I've been listening to your podcast.
Speaker 2 00:02:50 And I had a couple of questions. I think that's just really cool the way the world works right now, we have, you know, technology makes things a lot more simple information is very handy. And I just, I don't know. I take a lot of pride in the fact that I'm putting information out there that is helpful to some individuals that randomly a guy from New York can call a guy in Montana and get some questions answered, lickety split. So, you know, cell phones, internet, all that stuff. Here's the podcast, I'm your host. And there's a lot of different forums and platforms where you can get information and not all of it is specifically information much of it. Now you could say I'm the same where I also, I mean, my objective, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't make money. Right. But I make enough money in certain situations that there's a lot of that.
Speaker 2 00:03:44 It offsets it for other people who just need the information and don't have the capacity or the desire to do business with me. And that's fine as far as I see it, but I've had several guests on the podcast and I want to tell you right now, one of those guests called me on Monday night. Yeah. Today it's Friday. I just released the most recent podcast. How mul are like annuities. It's a newsletter throwback to about two years ago. Just came out yesterday. So this one's gonna come out next week. I always have to record 'em ahead of time. Give the, uh, producer time to put 'em all together and do the intro and make 'em look nice. So I'm a flawed individual. I am not perfect. And, uh, this does not come out automatically. So there's production required anyway. So my guest called me and said, and he had been a host of, uh, safe money radio in the past.
Speaker 2 00:04:40 And on the podcast. If you go to the podcast page on the website, or if you scroll down on your phone, if you're listening to on your phone, they're called show notes where they're where the topic is explained. And then key points within the podcast are kind of highlighted and you know, the minute the timestamp on 'em. So you can go, if you want to hear that specific spot, you can skip forward anyway. And so I, I wanna give a shout out to my editor, who is Dave at, uh, podcast engineers. Dave's in the Philippines. And I love the show notes, cuz he is not a person. He's a professional producer, an editor, but he's not, uh, seasoned and educated in annuity. So he's learning this stuff as you guys see it, right? And so I love his, uh, remarks. He writes the intro and the ideas.
Speaker 2 00:05:36 If you scroll down and look at what's written about like, it's kind of like to entice a person to read the podcast. So I wanna say, Dave, I love you. I appreciate you. And you're doing a really good job picking up this stuff because nine times outta 10 he'll nail the explanation perfectly. And this is a guy who is a, he's a technical engineer, he's a podcast editor. So he does the audio, the video splices in the intro and all that stuff puts the photos in. He's a technical guy, but he has no schooling in annuities, retirement planning. And I think it's awesome. I'll pat myself on the back a little bit, but also give him credit for being a very intelligent individual. And he can pick up the point of that podcast. So nine times outta 10, I love what he writes. There's been only a couple of cases where I've edited the writing just a little bit, but for the most part, I wanna leave it alone.
Speaker 2 00:06:34 And I just tell everybody that, like, that's not my voice. That's someone else. Totally unattached, totally unrelated to it. Not in the market for annuities, but he is able to explain the topic to you as essentially a lay person. But it's interesting. Anyway, so in one of the episodes, I had a guest who was formerly a host of safe money radio. Now safe money. Radio is a marketing campaign by an insurance and marketing institution that's been done out and they, they claim now if you search it, they've got almost a hundred, uh, people nationwide on am radio stations where they're given a financial talk on a radio show, right? Well the lawyers for safe money radio wanted said, listen, you know, in the show notes, Dave put, well, Hey, this guy was a host of safe money radio. And they thought that he was trying to gain credibility by mentioning those credentials on my podcast.
Speaker 2 00:07:35 So because it was his liability, not mine. I went in and edited that so that it didn't mention him being a part of that. So safe money radio, you don't get advertisement on my podcast anymore. I guess that was a freebie. But if you don't want it, you don't get it. So I took it off, but then I said, wait a second. This is like, just like all those dinner seminars and all this other stuff. The same thing I talk about at all times where safe money radio is a marketing program and a sales pitch to entice. You get you to buy certain annuities. Now it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I want everybody to understand the difference. I've had people that get ahold of me after they went to a dinner seminar and said, well, you know, you basically do the same thing.
Speaker 2 00:08:24 You put all this information out there and then you ask for appointments. Yes, that is true to a very, uh, small extent because what I want everybody to understand is that this is purely authentic. Now I thought about this podcast a lot before I hit the record button. And now I'm nine minutes in and I'm just talking. What everybody needs to understand is that this is 100% authentic. I turn the camera on. I load up the webpage, make sure the audio's working and all that. I have had a couple of podcasts. I didn't check the audio before a couple of times I had to record them a second time. It's very frustrating, but this is me talking to you. This is what I've learned in the business, talking to you. This is what I know sharing with you. The information now safe money radio is fine and it's a great way for other people or other agents to get their message out there.
Speaker 2 00:09:22 But these are people that would not have had the initiative on their own. This is my initiative. I decided to do this. I created this, I built the website. I wrote all this stuff. I've done the research. I've searched all of this stuff for you and you can choose to use it if you want to. But if you don't understand the difference of having an authentic creation, my own brain power, everything is my intellectual property. I did not get fed this information from any one. This is mine. And so when I look at, you know, and so I've known not only the individual who was a guest on the podcast, but other people who have been on safe, I've known other guys that have advertised on safe money radio.
Speaker 2 00:10:15 And they all say the same thing because I was actually approached by that radio program and said, Hey, what they do is that we can get you a time slot on a local radio station. We have all the scripts and we have everything done up and we can just feed it to you. And all you gotta do is flip the switch and just read. And that's what you gotta do. Just talk about it. And I don't, I don't know if everybody appreciates that I would not feel, I wouldn't feel good about myself if I was simply just a drone for someone else and working for another person's objectives. So I work for your objectives. I share the information I have. It's up to you to decide if that information is valuable and if it's worthwhile, okay. So save money, radio. I could pay. And, and like the agents, they have to pay a fee and they get on there and they can pay for the radio time.
Speaker 2 00:11:12 They do all the stuff. And obviously this podcast costs me something as well. So it's not that different or it all costs us something to get our information out there. But you know, it's interesting where it's like, I could just take all these scripts, right? And I could just sit here and Tuesday's at 3:00 PM in the afternoon. I'm gonna be on am six 90 and I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna read something to you. <laugh> sorry. I think that's kind of, uh, it's a little, uh, disingenuous, to be honest with you. Now there's certain things. And again, for a lot of people, there's probably some good information out there. I would assume that the guys that are doing it and delivering it and speaking on the radio are probably good guys. And they probably mean, well, they just wanna make money for their families.
Speaker 2 00:11:52 They wanna have a successful career. There's probably a lot of, there's a lot of good reasons why someone would do it, but I'm just here to tell you why this is different and to anybody on safe money radio. If the lawyers are going to scrub the internet, I, I always think like scrubbing the internet. There must be some bad info out there. They're trying to get rid of this was not one of 'em. That was a benefit to you. And I never would've done this podcast. If you hadn't said anything and said, Hey, take that off of your show notes. It's BS. And so instead of having one line on the show notes, they're gonna get an entire podcast talking about why I think safe moneys, mostly a load of crap. And the problem is it's. I wrote about it in a newsletter and I'm not gonna share my screen today, just because I can talk about these things.
Speaker 2 00:12:36 You can go search 'em if you really want to, you go to the newsletter page or the podcast page, search the word commissions, and you'll get a podcast or a newsletter. How commissions affect annuity sales. Now I did that podcast last year. Sometime I wrote the newsletter probably two years ago. And the problem is everybody has an issue with commissions, but you realize that most annuities are sold through a third party marketing organization. The insurance companies have outsourced their sales and marketing divisions to something that's called an insurance marketing organization or a field marketing organization. So IMO FMO, whatever they want to call themselves. Right? So you've got a third party organization that's starting, these radio shows for advisors. So do you tell me the advisor that's dealing or that's delivering the safe money radio script to you? Do you think that guy is really doing what he thinks is best or is he doing what that organization tells him to do?
Speaker 2 00:13:38 And I'll let you answer that question for yourselves. Because if I went to now, I have to work through insurance, marketing organizations in order to do consistent business, because I represent a lot of different things. If I went to any one organization, they're going to tell me what they want me to sell for the reasons they wanna sell it. Now, it doesn't mean there could be. I also work with agent direct companies, which I prefer, and I wish all companies would do that. I wish I could go straight to the company, but I could go, they're gonna be an agent direct company that has a far better deal, like an income deal or a growth deal, whatever. Right. And that insurance marketing organization that's put me on the radio is gonna say, yeah, but you can't sell that. It's not best for the client. It has to be this because that's what we make money on.
Speaker 2 00:14:30 So safe money radio, all well and good, good intentions, all this stuff. But in many cases they could be deliberately holding you back from other clients. And I know the guys that I've talked to who have done it, they call me and say, well, yeah, but I didn't like it because they're gonna Sue me if I sell this other product. And that's the issue with the guy on the guest on my podcast was he was gonna get, I dunno if he was gonna get sued, but they threatened him. Right. So go ahead and threaten me. I've had, uh, cease and desist letters from two insurance companies based on the information I provide and the insurance companies did not debate what I said. They only said we don't allow you to use our company name. So I had to delete the company name. Okay, fine. I take as a, as a badge of honor.
Speaker 2 00:15:20 And if you don't work with someone like that, who will be an antagonist in the companies to make sure that you get the right thing, then fine do business with some guy that's letting somebody else tell 'em what they think is best. I make up my own mind, make my own decisions. My advice is, is based on 20 years of doing this, talking to tons of people, different areas, I'm just trying to let you know how the market works and why I do what I do. So I have advisors that call me and say, man, how did you do it? Well, I'll tell you guys how I did it. I sucked it up. And I suffered for years to build this business because it was just the way I've told everybody early in my career, where I called it street fighting. You go to charity functions and benefits and you meet people.
Speaker 2 00:16:05 And you know, you see a, a story of a new doctor, a new doctor's in the paper. You go to his office and you shake his hand and you try to get him to come to the office. And it was just also aggressive sales business is aggressive. And I know for a fact that 100% of retirees could use an annuity in some way. And so why should I have to fight for it? How about I just put the information out there and the people that are smart enough, figure it out and call me and realize I'm gonna do the best thing for them. Those are the people I want. And that's who I get. That's why my life is so easy and pleasant right now is cuz I have such great people. I love you all by the way, annuity straight talk hats. This is the last of the last batch.
Speaker 2 00:16:48 From eight years ago, I've got a new batch coming. Next time you see me wear a hat on this podcast. It would be a brand new AST hat, very comfortable, very wearable clients only let me know. I'll send you one to you anyway. So this is just something like I'm doing this because I enjoy it. Okay. And you like save money radio. I would never ever let someone script me a message. So I can, do you wanna talk about longevity? Do you wanna talk about market protection? Do you wanna like no loss income, right? I'll talk about that. I don't need somebody to gimme the words. You guys all know that because you've read the newsletters for years. I've got some close to a thousand articles that I wrote and that's how I did it. I just sat there and I got to work and I did.
Speaker 2 00:17:32 It took me a long time and I'm happy with where I'm at right now. And I appreciate the clients. I do have the people that trust me. I will never ever let you down. I flew to Kentucky two weeks ago to meet with a client of 12 years because she's, uh, needs to hand over power of attorney to her brother. She's terminal illness, sweet lady. That's the kind of service I provide. Might do a podcast on that separately. But anyway, if you look at, I just, I don't know if there's a whole lot of other people out there that do it that way. I'm very, you realize I internalize all of this stuff. And it's very important to me to make recommendations that align with your goals and what you want. That's why you could ask. I don't know, hundreds of people, Hey, you probably don't need an annuity.
Speaker 2 00:18:23 I've got another guy that, you know, has been around for a couple of years. I told him he didn't need an annuity. And the reason I said that is because he came in and did like a lot of people. He's like a lot of people gets a, a pitch for an annuity. And I look at it and I realize that that pitch does not even, or the product that was recommended does not even come close to fitness goals. There might be a couple of things in there that work against him as well. And I tell him to not buy it. Now I can't go in that situation and say, well, you shouldn't buy that one, but, but you buy this one. I already know when those things happen that I'm not gonna get a sale. Then my goal of first and foremost is to do a service to the individual and make sure that they stay away from a contract that won't benefit them and make financial decisions.
Speaker 2 00:19:14 Well, they're a guy like that recently said he listens to the podcast. So he's out in PA and he might buy a short term, fixed annuity from me now because it seems like it works for a situation. And that's what I told them again. It's like, you don't need one, but maybe you want one. Maybe it fits a purpose. Maybe it does the right thing. That's kind of the goal for everything. So you go back to save money radio and it's, uh, the goal is probably to get everybody to be convinced that, oh, you're gonna run out of money or the market's gonna destroy your portfolio. You gotta do this. And the only way for you to be saved is to have an annuity. Well, I know for a fact, a lot of people have a portfolio big enough and it doesn't have to be a ton of money.
Speaker 2 00:19:53 It has to be it's, it's a ton of money in relation to what you have to pull out of it. We talked about that tons of times. So I will tell people they don't need annuities all the time, but I don't think any, none of my clients need annuities. They decide they want them. And usually they buy one and they buy another one because they realize, oh, this isn't that scary or say, oh, I don't wanna lock up money for 10 years. Well, your money's been locked up for 40 years. You haven't touched it. What do you mean? Lock it up. It's still your money. And I apologize, got a little frog in my throat. Kind of like some sinuses, uh, or an allergy and a little bit of a sore throat this week. So maybe I'm a little rough. But anyway, so when I was looking at, uh, safe money radio, do a Google search on it.
Speaker 2 00:20:34 It's interesting. Maybe driving on the point of what I'm saying. If you do a Google search, you'll see. Oh yeah, they've got almost a hundred radio hosts nationwide. It's a marketing organization trying to get bigger. That's marketing plan is to give agents the ability to market themselves. Cuz the agents apparently can't think of content on their own. Like they don't. I and, and I understand like a lot of people don't think that like I think, oh man. I mean the, the whole idea with the website was to compress my time. When someone asks a question, I can send, 'em a link. Here's the newsletter. Here's the answer because I've already done it instead of writing out an entire email again. Right. But if you, you search safe money radio, and it's all based, it's all focused on the advisor, right? So it it's supposed to get me.
Speaker 2 00:21:22 It's supposed to get me excited. Not the consumer. It's not about, oh, look at this wonderful couple. That's done all these great things. No, I don't wanna give 'em any ideas, but they should turn it around. And when people search it, a consumer should get a consumer piece where you realize how great it is to listen to safe money radio instead. Right? Well, what you get as of today, when I look at it, you get an explanation of how great it is for the agent, right? He's talking about, oh, now I'm the celebrity. I'm the authority. I'm this, I'm that. And I made all this money and I got all these easy sales and I got these referrals and I got these things, right?
Speaker 2 00:22:04 I want you to know that annuity straight guy is about the consumer. It's about what you should know about what you can do. I don't post a lot of success stories. I've had a couple, but when you're empowered and you understand, and you think for yourself and you figure things out and you walk into a situation, you commit to a financial deal. You don't need anybody telling you that you did a good job cuz you know it for yourself. So anyway, here's the safe money radio congrats. You guys are doing great. I appreciate that. You made my guests pull that off of the show notes. I edited that myself and took it out of there. But you cannot tell me I can't talk about it. And again, I don't think it's a bad thing, but you're getting limited information. You're getting it from a third party.
Speaker 2 00:22:54 If all of a sudden I said that, you know what? I've got a bug in my ear and somebody's telling me what to say. Then you wouldn't think I know what I'm talking about. As much I'm sitting here talking about it. I literally turned the camera on hit record and I've been talking about it. So I'm here. If you have any questions you run into safe money radio. Maybe they got the best deal. Maybe they don't. If you have questions, you want to verify it. I swear to you. If you, they got the best deal, I will tell you, go for it. If they don't, I'll show you something better. My number 804 3 8 5 1 2 1 go to the website, annuity straight talk.com top right corner. Schedule a call. Get me on the radio or get me on the phone. Not the radio. I'm not gonna do radio. I'm not in a very big market for radio, but yeah. Schedule a call with me. It's super easy. Respond to the email with questions or comments, comment below the post on the podcast or the newsletter. I'm not sure I might write a newsletter with this one as well. So we can double it up. Go check out how meals are like annuities from last week, episode 44, but this has been 45 safe money radio. Anyway, Brian Anderson signing out. You guys have a great day. Okay, bye.
Speaker 1 00:24:20 Have been listening to annuity straight talk. The information is for information and educational purposes only it does not represent tax legal or investment advice. The views expressed by program and do not necessarily reflect the views. An talk, no information presented should be acted. Its important. I.
