Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: 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. You 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.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Hello and welcome, everyone, to the Annuity Straight Talk podcast, episode number 108.
My deepest apologies for missing a week last week. Had a lot going on. Was trying to get out in the woods one last time. It's always a sad moment for me when I know the horses and mules are going to get put away for the winter. Might get one more quick ride anyway, but I went out again just to enjoy the fall weather. It was a beautiful weekend, and so I figured that's only the second one I missed this year. Last year I did 44 out of 52 weeks. I thought that was pretty good, and I bet I hit 50 if I just missed two of them. I want to answer your questions. Remind everybody to subscribe to the YouTube channel or your favorite podcast platform. Leave comments, share it with people because it does help. The feedback I'm receiving leads me to believe that more people would appreciate the information.
And here's a nice topic that popped up. A new client customer went through a whole process with him and he said, got to the end. Why should I buy an annuity from you? So I'm going to do that. Why you should buy an annuity from me. That's assuming you do buy an annuity. And I guess the first point that's not even in the newsletter is that I'm going to tell you whether you should or shouldn't. I do tell a lot of people. No, don't do that. There's another little story in this. So I guess I could share the screen. It's not necessary. It's just a newsletter, and we'll talk about it. Episode 108 why you should buy an annuity from me if you're going to buy an annuity. Okay, the reminder, obviously, it's the feedback. And this really was like one of those times where it's bang. That's a great episode. So share your thoughts and questions. A lot of people come to me with stuff. I try my best to include it if it's relevant or not or sometimes it's a past episode. One thing that's very important, if you're coming to this for the first time and you like one or two of the episodes, if you make an appointment with me, which is pretty quickly becoming the only way to get a hold of me just because I am busy enough where you have to block time on my calendar.
Most people, I can say one or two of these podcasts, this one and this one are, hey, you need episode 76 and episode 49. I don't know. And they'll explain your situation exactly. One couple I talked to last week, man, I said, you guys are dead set in the middle of these two episodes. You watch these and this is going to tell you exactly what you should be looking at right now. Okay?
But if I get your feedback, that's helpful for it's. Frequently asked questions, case studies, all that stuff. So I don't get stumped that often. I don't know everything, but I know a lot. And I remember it was when the question came to me, this was close, but obviously I'm going to come up with something. But it was a pretty obvious explanation, especially after we were doing, been through this is Rick. That's the only thing I'm going to tell you about him. We're not talking about the amount of money, but we had been going over this for a few weeks and it's like I got an impression of what other people had shown him and then I automatically kind of helped me jump off from there and show him a couple of different ways of doing it. So it was a throwback to episode 102 just about six, seven weeks ago. Annuity solutions are easy. So the first time I talked to him, bingo, I know exactly what he's going to do. And then it's just me figuring out how to communicate that to him based on all the different parameters and everyone's different. Even if you have the same amount of money as Rick and the same goals as Rick, and you're the same age, the solution you come to is going to be different, probably. So I didn't have a hard time figuring this out, but he had to understand it. So when we propose it and then people go away for a week or so and we follow ups, whatever, everybody moves at their own pace. We took the time and went through all the options, comparing it to everyone else and everything he had seen. So he had talked to a couple of other people and he found a benchmark. I know I got to spend about this much money. So really the goal was predictable retirement income and the most efficient way to do it. Again, mathematics aside, everybody's solution is going to be different depending on who you talk to, who you work with, what you like, what you don't like, it's all going to be different. So, yeah, I learned he had seen a bunch of proposals right off the bat.
So some situations like this, I go dang, yeah, that's a pretty good option, you should go for it. But it wasn't that case because I was able to find for guaranteed income, solutions are easy. That was definitely the case. This time I found him, I think the savings, it would have cost him 20% less to buy the deal that I found for him, or he could just choose to take more income with the same amount of money. So this is standard, whether no matter who does business with me.
I didn't just recommend the income deal.
I ran the numbers in comparison to the deferred annuities. Deferred annuities that would give him more control over the money, flex strategy, like that kind of thing. We plugged in all the options, including the other stuff he saw to see which produced the best results for his portfolio over retirement. I remember we were talking about it and he had two options that he really liked. And I said, should we prove it? And he said, yeah, I probably should. So we opened up the spreadsheet again and we went put it all in there and I could show you guys a spreadsheet, but that's not the purpose. It is a good case study, but that's not the purpose of doing this. So the results of what the spreadsheet told us in the historic scenarios, they leaned toward favoring the income annuity. It was a toss up, but I remember there was a contrast in the income annuity just for his deal. It was really good deal. He ended up going with that because this is where his wife came into it. And I actually said this. I said, what happens when you're not around? What do you think your wife wants? She doesn't want anything to do with it. I said, what do you want to leave behind? Do you want to leave technical choices and the flex strategy or do you want to leave behind just predictable income that's going to keep coming no matter what? He's like, yeah, that's probably right. That's a good idea. So that's when it popped up and we're doing the paperwork, went through all that stuff. And he said, I don't mean to offend you, but I got to ask, why should I buy it from you? He said, what difference does it make? And I wasn't offended. Like I said, little lump in my throat. But it came to me right away.
And that's an opportunity to remind him what we had been through, because that was just based on he might only be going back to our most previous meeting, but we talked three or four times.
So to remind him of everything we talked about and then to tell everyone, this is the process I go through, and if it works for you, then you absolutely should buy an annuity from me if you want the best advice. So I'll give every other advisor the benefit of the doubt. Some don't deserve it, but most of them are probably just decent guys who haven't done a whole lot of work and definitely have not dug in to understand all the options like I have. All the other people he talked to about his retirement plans had recommended one single solution. He got a variable annuity, right index annuities. Both with income riders were all mentioned by different people depending on what they do. I was the first person to compare those to an immediate annuity, and nobody came up the idea to use a multi year, guaranteed fixed annuity. Furthermore, no one could take all these options, test them over historic scenarios to see which is actually the best. I gave him all the options so he could make the choice that he felt was best. There is not a financial guru in this country who could argue with the results that we created. My reward for all that work was to write the business and make a little money. I take the same process with everyone. We don't always talk about all the options.
Some people really love to go over the details a lot of times, and some people just they're more trusting. I don't know what it is. Hey, that sounds good. I think it's great. But it doesn't mean I don't do it just to make sure I'm giving you the best deal. Some people come in knowing exactly what they want, then it's my job. I still got to do it to make sure they are actually focused on the right thing.
And if I see them making a mistake based on the numbers that come out or the opportunities that are out there, I'll definitely tell them. I had one of those last week. A couple of doing. The husband had actually done a lot of research, knew exactly what they wanted. He'd watched a bunch of the podcast. He did some online income calculators, figured out exactly what it was, and he was sharp. He told me everything. This is why I want it. This is what we want to do. So we set up a second meeting to do the paperwork. I was like, oh, that's easy. During the second call, I realized his wife didn't have the same level of understanding, and she wasn't quite sure. Now it was two IRAs, and one of it was hers. So they weren't on the same page, not in a bad way. But she just didn't fully understand what she was getting into. And I said, all right, stop right there. Time out. You guys need to go back and get on the same page and figure out what you both want, because I'm not going to do this if you're not. She doesn't understand we can't do it. I could have pushed, and I probably could have got her to sign the papers, probably. But it wasn't worth my reputation, my business, to potentially put someone in a deal that they're going to regret down the road.
So I had to pull the plug and tell them not to buy the annuity. There are not a lot of agents that would walk away from that. But it's better for them, and it's better for my business in the long run, because when they come back, and I bet they will, then they're going to know exactly what they want, and we're going to be able to go through that and test the options one more time.
But again, it's not out to sell everything. I'm here to educate. So the other thing that's interesting is, as agents and advisors, we're doing disclosures with all the annuity paperwork and stuff. We're actually required to offer multiple options. We're supposed to say here's A, B and C? Or at least A and B?
They're really trying to push insurance guys into a fiduciary role. So I adopted that a long time ago. It's let's just stick and do what's best for people. That's why I end up telling people not to buy annuities, or why I'm the only guy that's going to show you four or five options. Not just different annuities, different ways of doing it. When you go to most of the people I talk to, if the only reason they've seen multiple options, they've talked to multiple people, then they get stuck trying to figure out whose opinion makes the most sense.
You come here, you get to see it all in one place. Then you use your own judgment to find the deal that works best for you, like Rick did. Too many people are focused on selling rather than educating first.
You don't always get different annuities from me, but you will move forward with more confidence. That sounds like what you'd rather do. Then you're in the right place and I'm here. My name is Brian Anderson. You can make an appointment with me at the top right corner of any page on annuitiestraighttalk.com. Schedule a call.
I'm shying away from the phone number. All my clients have my cell phone number. Everybody knows how to get a hold of me. It's there. But I'm getting too many calls and I don't have time to do it. I'm probably going to leave it up, but I'm not going to advertise it as much. I urge you to make an appointment. If you want to talk to me, please do or respond to my emails. Share these with your friends, subscribe comment, whatever you can do to help me out and get the message out. I certainly appreciate everybody and the loyalty. I got a lot of good stories from this fall. I don't know how to weave it into a podcast. Maybe I'll just start dropping them little by little when I do things, but there it is. So episode 108 why you should buy an Annuity from me if you're going to buy an annuity. You guys appreciate you stopping by, and I look forward to seeing you for episode 109 next week. I'm on a roll and we're going to get it done and I will see you there. Okay, thanks. Bye.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: You have been listening to Annuity Straight talk.
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