What Most Agents Get Wrong About IULs (Ep.281)

A 23-year-old writing $145,000 of target premium in a single month sounds like hype until you hear how Keenan Stockling actually does it. We talk through the unglamorous parts most people skip: getting uncomfortable, learning the contract, and structuring indexed universal life insurance the right way even when it means taking less commission. If you’ve ever wondered why some IULs perform well and others turn into disappointment, this conversation puts the spotlight where it belongs: the design, the illustration, and the client’s real goal.

We break down cash value life insurance in plain language, including how Keenan frames the choice between retirement-focused cash value growth and pure death benefit protection. We dig into overfunding, cost of insurance, guaranteed vs non-guaranteed values, and why policy loans can be a powerful way to access money without liquidating assets. We also talk diversification without trashing 401(k)s and IRAs, plus the practical skill that levels up new agents fast: calling the carriers, asking them to “sell you” on their product, and running real scenarios until you can explain it clearly.

Then we shift to annuities and retirement planning. Keenan explains annuities with an “escalator” analogy, while we dig into trust, emotion, and why protecting principal can be just as important as chasing returns. You’ll also hear his story of starting with no car, selling to friends and family, moving across the country, buying high-intent leads, and staying profitable while building a team and a bigger mission for his family.

If you get value from real talk about IULs, annuities, and life insurance sales fundamentals, subscribe, share this with a teammate, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

*****DISCLAIMER******
Results mentioned in this content are not typical and are not a guarantee of future performance. Individual results will vary based on a number of factors, including but not limited to experience, market conditions, product availability, and individual effort. Any examples, case studies, testimonials, or income figures shown are for illustrative purposes only and may not be representative of the experience of other individuals. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Insurance and annuity product guarantees are subject to the claims-paying ability and financial strength of the issuing company. FFL USA does not provide tax, legal, or accounting advice. Consult your own tax, legal, and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction.

Transcript

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What's up everybody? Andrew Taylor here. Today we have a special guest, Keenan Stockling. Thank you for coming in. Thank you for having me. All right, 23 years old. Yes, sir. And your biggest month is $145,000 of issue pay premium. Yes, sir. And you've been selling life insurance for two and a half years. That's correct. Alright, bro. Well, first we want to start by learning about your background. Yeah. And then we're going to get into you got to be selling IULs, right? Yeah. IULs, annuities. Okay, so then we're going to get into I selling IULs and annuities. So to start with, what did you do before life insurance? Before life insurance, I was a life uh excuse me, I was a real estate agent. I was with EXP Realty. I was doing pretty much, you know, where I'm a buyer's agent helping, you know, clients look at real estate properties, you know, putting out offers, and we're pretty much looking at three, four, five, six homes before we even, you know, submitted an offer. Um, but I did that for about six to seven months, and then um, you know, got invited to the convention with David Goggins, Barbara Corcoran from another, you know, agent that was selling real estate at the time with me. And um he told me to come out and see the environment because he was doing life insurance part-time at the at that time. But um, yeah, it was a a lead of

Real Estate To Insurance Conviction

1:18

events that you know led to me actually just like committing to get that you know flight to Dallas. That's awesome. What do you like about the what what did it for you at the conference? It was the testimonies, the success stories. There was a single mother, and uh, you know, she said she did, I think it was like a quarter million, just selling, and you know, she had a baby and you know was doing this part-time, so I'm jaw-dropped. What? And so, like, hundreds of other people saying that they're seeing success in this business as well helped me build that conviction. Now, this industry does have a lot of successful people, and I think it's pretty shocking to think about how many people have made millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars, but it is also full of a lot of people that are faking it. Right. Have you noticed that? Yes. How did you figure out who was faking it and who was the real deal? When I went to convention, seeing the people talk on stage, they're all saying the same thing, which is you know, surround yourself by high-level people, successful people, and ask really, really good questions. And so that's what I did. But I played sports like my entire life growing up, so I had that competitive mind like coming in that you know, I wanted to be the best at, whatever it was I was doing. Um, and in this business, I seen that, you know, there were people that pretty much wanted a lot of needs, like the flashy cars, you know, the watches, the money, the stuff you see on social media. And then there were people that had a long-term

Spotting Fakers And Finding Purpose

2:53

vision and real desires to be able to change your life. And so I knew straight up like surrounding yourself by the people that have a bigger purpose rather than just the money, the cars, the watches. That stuff is a byproduct, but like focusing on like the daily inputs and the discipline needed to become that person to acquire those things. And you're working with Monse. Yeah. Montserrat and her brother. And you work out of you, did you move to Phoenix? So I've been traveling with them for about eight months. You were in Chicago? I was in Chicago, I was in Naperville. Okay. Do you have siblings? I have eight. Eight siblings? Yes. Where do you land in that? I'm the second oldest. Oh, so you got your parents gotta be young. Yeah, 40s. Crazy. Yeah. Okay. So you start with them there. They say, let's move. You're down to move to Phoenix. Tell us about this move. And I like this because there's a lot of people who don't have anything to lose. Like you're you don't have a family to feed, do you? Uh no wife, no kids, not. No wife, no kids. So you have the ability to pick up and move and learn and travel and do all these things. Yeah. But you just decided to up and move to Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah. Which I believe is now the mecca of life insurance. Like all the big team a lot of big teams with our company are there. But why did you guys move? Yeah, so it took a lot out of me to even move from my um hometown, which is New Jersey. I'm from Union, and I moved from there. Um, I grew up there with my parents my entire life, and I went to Naperville with, you know, Montana Brion, I think it was August of last year. And, you know, being there, I actually didn't have a place to like sleep at night. So we had uh motel sixes, and uh like it was best western. We would pretty much hotel hop every single week with six other guys and you know, two two beds in a motel just to you know show up to the office every single day. So like from there, like I knew that you know this wasn't gonna be how my life is gonna go, but I need to be able to have a a starting place to be able to have that foundation. Um in Chicago, it was great, like surrounding myself by them was one of the best things in the world because they taught me the discipline, the grit to get up every single day with a strict schedule, and you know, obviously forget what you feel that day, just get the job done. Um and it wasn't until December of last year when they said, Hey, let's get up, let's go surround ourselves by J, by nonstop, by limitless, these guys selling, you know, higher-end marketing at a high level. That way we can get around better energy, better environments to be able to grow and scale our business faster and more efficiently. And so that's what we did. I literally drove my car from Chicago to Arizona. It was a 25-hour drive. And I did it in like 30 hours, and uh pretty much. Did you sleep? I I slept, yeah. Did you pull over and sleep in the car? So I went to Texas and I pretty much yeah, I stayed in the car and uh slept for five hours and then finished the rest of the drive. Back in the day we used to um have to drive to appointments, and usually because we couldn't sell over the phone, usually we would have to stay overnight because it'd be a three, four, five hour drive. Yeah. And we'd have multiple days of appointments, and this dude was like, he wrote like a couple hundred grand a year, but he was like, bro, I only sleep in my car. And I'm like, dude, that sounds sketchy as hell. Why don't you get a hotel room? He's like, I just I don't know, I just sleep in the Walmart parking lot because the lights stay on all night, and I guess that like Walmart parking lot's the safest place to sleep, I guess. Is that Egan? No, no, no. But does Egan do this? I heard he did it back in the day. I could see him doing it. He's a he he's looking for trouble, dude. He's legit like is something sketchy going on. Let me go over there and find it. Yeah. But then I'm like, dude, how do you uh how do you feel safe? And he just like pulls his shirt up and has like a huge gun on his hip. He's like, Oh, I got this with me. Yeah. Like, damn. Yeah. Alright, so where'd you sleep in your car? Uh I just had a drunk. I put my battery. No, no, no, but like where'd you park? Oh, yeah. Pretty much like I would like go to like an apartment complex where usually you can like pull over by the side and just you know stay there overnight. Okay. But um so you went to get around Jay and be a part of this new office. How big is this office? 60,000 square feet. So your guys is this is crazy for everybody watching. How old is Jay? Jay's 25 years old. So Jay's 25 years old. He has made an incredible living by the age of 25. When I was on the phone with them, he was like, dude, I pretty much can buy everything I want besides a plane, besides a jet. But he's like, I how many cars does he have? A handful, probably like five, six, two Lamborghinis and uh who knows what else? Like a Rolls-Royce and some old school Mustang, which I actually really like the old school Mustang a lot. Have you seen that one? He let me start it up one day. Oh, you did? Yeah. Okay. But long story short, Jay has made a very

Phoenix Office Culture And Training

8:33

good living in life insurance. He's done very well. Yes. He goes, I want to double down. I'm gonna get a 60,000 square foot office in Phoenix, and then you guys are now building a team there where people can come in. How many cubicles are there? Hundreds of cubicles, hundreds of cubicles, so you guys can grow and bring more people. What's the average age? Average age in the industry is 40, 50, but in our office, the oldest guy there is like 28, 29 years old. Damn, dude. So I'm like a grandpa there. Jay's actually old now for the agent, uh, average age. That's crazy. That's crazy. I'm just playing, but damn, like you got 18, 19 year olds coming in doing very well, but a lot of people make fun of them because they say they're LARPing. Do you know what that is? Yeah. What is that? It's like showing off something you don't have. So for some reason, a lot of kids are taking pictures with other people's cars and posting it to get attention. But some people are legit doing this thing and making real money. Yeah. What percentage of kids are LARPing? I think I think 80 to 90% of kids are LARPing nowadays. It's just like, it's good though, because at the end of the day, like it's still very nice to be in those environments where you're seeing, you know, those exotic cars and the you know the high rises, and you're around people like living that lifestyle. I think that's great. Um, but there there is a you know a fine line where it's like, okay, like you're attracting people that you know are only focused on like the materialistic things and not like the value that you get with this business. So I think you know, there's a you know a fine line. Well, you'll grow up. Everyone's gonna grow into this business. Like I changed a ton from when I was a k when I was 18 to what I wanted and what I thought about and what I thought was cool to now. But I do think it's really cool that you guys have this location that everyone can go to. Someone could fly there and move there and work out of there, yeah. And learn what? Pretty much the sales process, go through pretty much like a day-to-day of what we're doing. Um, I like to pretty much run like a boot camp when they first get there where we're going over the psychology of sales, we're going over how you know to market on social media. I get guys to pretty much go through like my day-to-day, and I'm sitting there, you know, dialing with them that way they can hear me and be able to take notes and implement the things that I'm you know using in my my sales process. Awesome. All right. How hard was it to switch from real estate to life insurance? It was it was pretty hard for me because I was devoted to you know getting my license in real estate. When I first started, it took me three months to get my real estate license because of how long the courses were. Um and I was doing uh a part-time job uh selling home or modeling door-to-door. So the process for me to get a license was three months, and then it took me four months to get my first sale. So it was a lot of sweat equity and time put into it, and so I was really committed to just like making it, you know, through it because obviously like I didn't have like a a past of like committing to things. You know, I went to college, I you know, ended up dropping out after a year, and you know, I didn't want to be that guy that

Hitting Big Months With IULs

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was just gonna stay at their hometown and you know work at a uh local grocery store their entire life and never really grow. Yeah. Um so I was okay with taking that risk after I've seen the convention, after I've seen the people and their success stories. I was like, what's the worst that can happen? Yeah, take risk while you're young. Do you what's your goals? My goal by the end of the year is to be able to sell a million dollars. It's a big goal. Yeah, it's a big goal. I spoke to Trey Howe about it, but you know, I'm gonna You did 145,000 in a month. Yeah. In a month? Yeah. And 320,000 total in a month. Yeah. What what was the policy break breakup on that? Like how many policies? It was about 15, 20 policies and big big ones? What was the biggest one? The biggest one was about twelve thousand a month. Who bought that? You don't gotta say their name, but like what was the scenario? It was a it was a business owner. He was in construction and he was looking to be able to leverage his policy to be able to borrow against it with a way better interest rate than he would be able to get at a bank without any strict repayment schedules and be able to put that towards real estate in his business. Um, so I was able to optimize the policy where he can be able to do you know lump sums for a period of years and then have the policy pretty much paid off, which creates you know generational. How many years? Five years. So he so I got a policy last year. Okay. And it is a seven pay. Yeah. Actually, no, I think it's a ten pay. But you can change that year by year. Yeah. Um, but this is a good tool for business owners, but I do think that some agents don't sell it right in the industry. Like they don't understand, they don't explain the cash value and the how the cost of insurance works and explain the illustrations. How do you do that? I think that's what I'm like coming across a lot nowadays because everybody hears about the IUO, it's on their feed, TikTok, Instagram, everywhere. But you know, they're not really asking the questions with their agents about how they want it set up. It's usually just like the you know, the the label that everybody wants, but never really goes in depth with how to do it because there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. As there is everything. But the way I usually find out what clients want best with their policy is by asking them, hey, when you initially filled this out, was your main goal to be able to have that cash value build you a retirement income, or were you looking for the life insurance benefits and the most amount of protection? Or a mixture of both, Andrew? Both. Okay, perfect. And then I usually go based off of how their you know financial inventory looks, like if they have any 401ks, pensions, Roth, annuities, anything for retirement, or anything that works like life insurance, like a whole life or a term. And I do want to get into like what got them into looking into life insurance now. Like, did they experience a passing in the family? Did they have to go through any like terminal illness? Like what why now? And so I really want to understand, like all right, pause. Okay, pause, pause, pause. Sorry not to interrupt you. But there was a point in time that I'm calling leads that I realized every person filled out a lead because something recently happened in their life. So every person I would talk to, I would go, Keenan, what recent what recently happened to you, a family member or a friend that made you think this was important? And they every single time, 100% of the time, they would go, My friend from high school passed away. Or something happened that made this happen. And that would be a really good way to remind them of why we're doing what we're about to do. Yeah. But are you noticing that same thing? 100%. That's my goal, which is even if it's an aged lead, is to get them back to that point emotionally when they were putting in all their information to a 12-step form. So, like I have you know, new agents, you know, coming in asking, hey, what type of leads are you on? And how do you do this? How do you do that? When in actuality, it's all coming down to like where you stand as a person and how do you care about this other person over the phone? Like, they're people and they need to be led, so you need to understand like their reasoning why they're getting into this uh program and why they're sending out you know requests, it's super important. That's huge, dude. Okay, so you've how many people say it's not for life insurance? I just want it for cash value? More than more than um uh the average I I get more people saying cash value because nowadays like they're seeing like okay, there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. And so people, yeah, they're realizing, okay, so I tried out the IUL three, four years ago, and you know, it wasn't really working for me the best way. Um I wanted to look at adding on another policy done the right way. Um, can we look at restructuring it to be able to have the most amount of investment? And so what I like to do is I show the illustration and I think it's super important. Um, that way you can explain to them, you know, how they'll be able to use the policy. Um, not for every scenario because obviously, like, you know, it's not a one-size-fit-all. Uh but for the people that are, you know, a little bit more like uh competent when it comes to be able to understand like how investing works, they'll say, Yeah, I can do five to ten percent of my monthly income into something like this. All right. So you wrote 145k of target premium and a 320K of annual premium in a month. Now, a lot of people don't know what that means, but 145k of target premium is what you get commissioned on, right? Right. And then the difference between those two is the extra money people put in for the cash value, is that correct? Overfund, yes. What they're overfunding. Now you're not getting paid on the overfunding because that's just going into the account to be make interest over time. But that's what we want. That's what you want. Yeah. So you're taking less commission but structuring them right. Correct. And a lot of people, if you don't overfund it, the commission is higher, right? Is that the case? Correct. So if you set it up so that you get that with the overfund, you get more life insurance, right? You get higher commissions, yeah. So you're setting it up where you're given less life insurance, more cash value, less commission to you, better product for the customer. And it's irreplaceable. Ooh. I like that. So what you're selling, it's hard for people to replace. Right. Because you're setting it up right every time. Who you set what what's your favorite carrier? National Life Group. Oh, yeah. I like Trans America too. All right, so we do want to talk about this. We had unfortunately uh somebody's family member pass away that worked at FFL. They had an NLG policy and an F and G policy that they got the same time. NLG paid the claim and FNG denied the claim. So we're like, yo, that made us like NLG even more. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But you like NLG, the price is good, it's hard to beat. That's what I use to get the policies on my kids. And that way when they grow up, they'll have a cash value account that they can pull money from and invest into a business or a property or something like that. That's genius. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I think everybody should do it, man. Like mine is uh it's $500 a month per kid. And I the numbers just it doesn't make sense not to do it. If anybody has that money that they're putting in savings or extra every month, yeah, it doesn't make sense not to do it. Right. And especially it's a good tool for grandparents to give their kids. Have you sold anything like that before? Yeah. Or their grandkids, bro. Yeah. You have? Because they come to me 70 years old and not in the best health. I still make sure that they're taken care of in in the sense of like them having something to be able to take care of the final expenses. But the people that are still, you know, in their older years of retirement are looking to be able to use something for, you know, the cash value. And I recommend for them, hey, if we do this on yourself, you're gonna have to spend $700, $800 a month for it to even make sense. Do you have any grandkids? Do you have any children? All right, how many babies do you have? So again into like if they have any kids, you can open up a juvenile policy for them, um, pretty much get them set up with you know, day one coverage, um, with no underwriting, you know, uh requirements really needed, it's you know, gonna get instantly approved if they're under the age of 18. What do you say to people that first of all, Drew, you could hit the fire button on that because anybody watching this, they'll call a lead and they may think it's a bad lead, but you wrote two or three grandchildren IULs on that lead that someone else thought was a bad lead. Yep. Um what do you say to people that because there's a lot of people that hate anytime something's good, there's a lot of people that hate on it, but there's also people that don't do this the right way. So I guess it's deserved to be hate on, hated on if an IUL isn't structured properly. Yeah. Right? Right. Uh but what do you say to people that go IULs are bad? I mean, like, with everything in life, I think there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. You just have to understand, like, when getting set up with it, it's not like you just call into a company and you get a quote on life insurance. It's not that, right? Unless you're looking just for the most amount for your you know dollar, right? And clients will be very upfront with you if you know they want to just take care of a mortgage or if they want to take care of final expenses, they'll let you know. But if their goal is more cash value, you gotta know as an agent to be able to set it up the right way. Because with the IUL, when it is set up so that you know they obviously get the optimized cash value, it won't lapse if it's funded the right way. Yeah. So mine, I paid, I made sure because the illustration has two sides to it. It has the guarantee and the non-guarantee. The guarantee is if it never makes a dollar. Right. The market does nothing for 20, 30 years. And I made mine, I made the way I structured mine, is it wouldn't even lapse on the guarantee side. That's how you know you did it, right? Yeah. Because I was like, bro, I ain't getting to the end. And they're like, thanks for paying us all that money, but it your policy lapsed. Yeah. So now after talking to enough people, I was way too aggressive because the market's never gonna do nothing every single year for 30, 40 years. So like it's okay to that is not a realistic outcome, the guarantee side. Right. The non-guarantee side or the midpoint, sometimes there's a middle one. Have you ever seen the midpoint? Conservative chart, yeah. Like, so like the and it shows you how much money you're gonna have on the illustration if the if the market performs at this rate every year. And it'll be like 3% or 6% or 7%. Yeah, it'll show you how much cash value you have and how much death benefits you have. Yeah. Now the cool thing though is like I've learned a lot about leveraging assets to where you don't have to sell them and pay taxes on them. So like I I have a couple properties that are paid off, and if I wanted to take money out of them, instead of instead of selling the property and paying taxes, I would just take a loan against the property. Right. Right? Well, an IUL works the same way, where you have all this cash value in there that grows, and instead of paying taxes on it and cashing it in, you can take a loan against the policy. Do you explain that to the customers at all? Yeah. So explain like the tax advantages with the policy is one of the best things because with working with people that you know are already like investing in something like a Roth IRA or a 401k, um, they

Tax Advantages And Policy Loan Logic

24:51

don't know like with those 401ks, like those weren't meant to be, you know, the household retirement plan for everybody. Um I heard it at convention too, 95% of employers don't even offer pensions anymore. And those were the one things that were like guaranteed income, right? Yeah. Now with the IUL, with how insurance works, they're gonna protect you from any market loss, but still give you the ability to be able to have that market gain. Um, and like you said, you know, with the illustration, you'll be able to see that. Um I don't want to get sidetracked. What was your question? Um I was saying how do you explain cash value to people? Yeah, so like how do you explain the loans? When they borrow against their policy, uh explain to them um not all the time, but I'll give them some like education. But tax code seven seven zero two states that life insurance is not a you know taxable asset, so when they pull from this policy, they're essentially being able to. I'm gonna look at that up. Tax code 7702. 7702. Let's see what Chat GPT says. It says life insurance contract let's see. Okay, life insurance policies have tax advantages such as tax-deferred cash value growth, tax-free death benefits in most cases, and the ability to borrow against the policy without immediate taxation. Right. It's pretty smo smooth that you knew that. And so, like with 401ks, capital gains is already taking thirty to forty percent of that, right? So having something on top of that to supplement is a great way to be able to have it diversified. That way you don't have all your eggs in one basket. Because the worst thing is, you know, people have been working for 20, 30 years and then the market just flips upside down and then they lost half of their portfolio. That's why, you know, annuities and IULs are great because when done the right way, it protects that principle, it protects that money that you started off with. Uh and how'd you learn all this? Um it was because I'm impressed. I didn't expect you to be able to explain this this well. Um, it was a lot of uh failure at first. My first year in business, it you know, it was a little bit shaky. I only sold like 50,000 in a full year. Um but I was you know part-time at the time and not really you know devoted to really seeing this full like uh like fully fully through at that point in time. But I always used to just like want to learn more, so I would just call the carriers, I would call National Life, I would literally tell them, sell me on your product, right? Tell me everything I need to know if I'm gonna go out there and you know sell this to my friends or family. Um and I did that with every carrier, you know, that came out with a product. I did it with Trans America when they came out with the FFIUL2. I literally just downloaded the illustration and read the contract. And so with understanding like how the companies came out with this product and asking them like over the phone, like you can literally call the companies and they get paid like a nine to five to teach us literally from start to finish how to sell their product. So that's why I think it's great to be able to call the companies and be able to be resourceful and ask better questions to your uplines because it's like the uplines didn't come out with the product, the companies did. Why do you want to go to your upline about oh, how do I set up a max funded cash value? IUL. Alright, pause. The companies are billion-dollar companies with sales teams. That's how I learned. I called them, they helped me run illustrations, they helped me run scenarios. You saying that is genius, and why do you think people don't do that? It's the like the aspect of being resourceful. Um, you know, they always try to look for an answer that they don't already know, but you know, we all know the answer, we just gotta go out there and do it. So you're saying they're just lazy? In a nice way. Yeah. So if you now did National Life Group help you structure this $12,000 a month case the right way? Yeah. So you called them, they designed it a bunch of different ways. You showed the customer, he saw the good, the bad, the cash value, the years, the illustrations, everything. Yeah, dude. So the one I did with my kids, the worst case scenario, if the market never performed one dollar, I would get back, I could cash all of the money out in 15 years that I put into it. And they'd be insured. So the the best case was like two or three, some insane number when they're in their 60s, two to three, four million dollars of cash value that they could borrow from and use. Yeah. And then the policy I did on myself, which I actually wish I did a bigger one now, but in t I'm putting in 700, I'm putting in sixty-five thousand-ish a year. Oh wow. And then for ten years, so six hundred and fifty thousand, and then it's a paid up policy for like over seven million dollars for the forever. I never have to make another payment, and that's the guaranteed side, and the non-guaranteed side is like millions and millions and millions of dollars of cash value. And the worst case scenario, again, on that one, is I could cash it in, I believe, at 15 or 20 years if it wasn't performing well and get all of my investment back. Right. And I would have had the insurance. How do you argue that? It's because like if you have a 401k or if you have an IRA, I keep going back to the retirement accounts because it's like if the market does negative for 20, 30 years straight, you're not gonna have those accounts. That's true. But insurance these pa these policies have cost of insurance is that are coming out of them, which is the biggest thing people don't understand. So that's how you get hurt. Every year the cost of insurance goes up and they're pulling from your cash value usually. Yeah. So how do you explain that to the customer, or do you just tell them that's all built into the illustration on the guaranteed and non-guaranteed sides? Yeah, so if I were to like get a better understanding of like how much they wanted like in cash, I asked for a percentage. How much do you want to set aside for your cash value? And most people say, let's do you know, 70 to 80 percent towards the cash. And that's gonna be a healthy design policy. So I scroll all the way down to the illustration where it says 120 years old. I say, I don't know if you have the best genetics in the world, Tom, but if you make it to 120 years old, you have you know X amount in cash and your deaf benefit is still active. So, you know, this is pretty much gonna be able to give you that permanent protection and then ensure that at any point in time you can still have a you know pot of money to be able to access, even you know, if the market were to flip upside down. Does that make sense? Yeah, but one thing I don't like to sell against um because I don't think you can compare them to IRAs or Roth IRAs because it's a life insurance policy. Right. So I don't like to sell against them. I like to tell people you should do all of them. Like if your job is matching you in your retirement account, do that. Yeah, put a little aside here and do this so you have insurance and you can borrow tax-free from the cash value and structure it right. And go buy some stocks and bonds and whatever. Yeah, but I do all of it, right? And I like all of them. I have a 401k, I have stocks, I have life insurance, I have term, I have technic, I have permanent or IUL, I got it all. Yeah. So I do you think people have a problem when they start bashing one to sell the other? I think so, yeah. Because like, as you said, like it's good to be diversified, and you know, when one thing isn't working the best, like you still have another working for you. And so being able to have something that can supplement what you currently already have in place, and then you know, obviously having it set up so that there's no max, I mean there's no uh caps or limitations to what you can do with the policy. Um gives you the ability to understand, okay, like if I want to do X, Y, and Z in terms of you know setting aside 10 grand a year for this policy, um, I can do that, but you know, I'm gonna just start off with the placeholder at $100 or $200 a month. Uh they don't have to come in all at the gates trying to, you know, pay or bite off more than they can chew. Um, it really is more in terms of like how much you can comfortably set aside and what you have in place already for like retirement or life insurance. Yeah, I'm impressed, dude. Drew, are you impressed? Yeah, I wasn't expecting him to die. You're sneaky, dude. All right. We're gonna talk about annuities, but before we do that, and I'm gonna quiz you on annuities. I want to know what's the hardest time you've had in the life insurance industry. The hardest time was when I was um transitioning from like living with my parents. Like living with my parents was just like so comfortable, so familiar, and I didn't really How old were you? I was literally last year, 22 years old. How'd you have girls over? I didn't, you know. I had my grandma like two rooms down, so I I didn't really have girls over. That's hilarious. So yeah. Okay, so you you're living with your parents, the low did you not why was it the lowest point? Um, no car. I was working part-time at AutoZone and yeah, I was uh I had a bike and my

Starting Broke And Learning Leads

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office at the time was in uh down the shore, Jersey Shore. Um, so I would hop on a train to get all the way to the office, which is like an hour, and bring my bike on the train, ride the bike to the office, and then have to do that all over again everything. So you decided to sell life insurance and you didn't even have a car? No. How'd you get money for leads? Um, so I was like pretty much selling friends and family. I was, you know, hopping on Zoom calls, you know, FaceTimes, telling them about like the IUL. That was one of the first products I've really gravitated towards. So being able to structure like the policy and tell them, hey, look, this isn't only good from when you pass away. Right? The insurance industry is took a massive turnaround in terms of how these policies work, where you are able to, you know, actually use it for more of you know a way you can have that income and have you know living benefits with the life insurance. So you went now it's funny because people come in and they say, I don't have any money. And I'm like, bro, you know this industry's been around for like 350 years, yeah. And the leads were people you knew. Yeah. And there's billion-dollar companies that only sell to people, friends and family, and get referrals, they don't use leads. So I love this because if you're new, hop on Zoom and get was it uncomfortable for you to call people? It was so uncomfortable. Why? Because it was just talking about, you know, death with people like I knew was just like, oh, like he's serious about this, right? And so that's what I had like going through my mind. I'm an overthinker, so I'm like, are they thinking like that though they're gonna pass away soon? But I just spoke with them and told them exactly how it works, and they actually love the idea. And so I had people that got one or two or referred a friend. How many of those did you sell? Dozens. My first year that's all I lived off of, yeah. And when do you get do you sell leads now? I buy leads now, yeah. What type of leads? IUL leads, retirement leads. Okay. Yeah, I use GOAT. You use GOAT leads? How many do you buy a week? I spend anywhere from two to three thousand a week. Alright, so for everybody watching, he he's not playing. How'd you get so you went from not even having a car? Do you have a car now? Yes. Yeah. To buying two to three thousand a week in leads to writing a hundred and forty-five thousand a target premium in a month. What's your chargeback rate? So it's normal to see chargebacks, but anywhere from ten to fifteen percent. So uh 80% persistency we had for last month. What kind of car do you drive? A BMW, too serious, nothing crazy yet. So you're you're taking it easy. Yeah. Are you really profitable or is it hard still because you're new with chargebacks and lead expenses and all this stuff? So I've been pretty much very profitable since you know transitioning into high intent leads. Before getting into high intent leads, I was working uh age leads and I was profitable doing that too. But you know, I really wanted to buy my time back that way I had more time to be able to put towards building a team. So getting into high intent changed everything. Um so the CPL, the cost per lead, um, it was really manageable at the time. What's a cost per lead? How much you know one lead costs for you know and how much is it for you? It's like 2530. For a high intent lead. Yeah. And how many do you sell out of 10? Out of 10? Anywhere from two to three. That ain't bad. Yeah. You're only doing IULs and annuities. Only. That's crazy. Okay, tell us what an annuity is if someone said what isn't what is an annuity? So it's pretty much an insurance contract that allows people to optimize their income for retirement. So what most people do is they roll over a current retirement product into an annuity to protect that principal, right? And to ensure that if I put in a hundred grand, I get a hundred grand back regardless. But it still gives them the ability to have the growth potential of the market index. So it's gonna be linked, you know, to the SP 500 where you're gonna see interest credits from when it does well. But I like to explain it as like an escalator. You know how like escalators work where you just go in one direction, you know where you're going. That's exactly how it works. So you're moving when the market goes up, but when it's down, you're

Annuities, Trust, And Long-Term Goals

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staying right there, right level. So you're not gonna participate or see, you know, the you know, account go you know upside down if the market goes negative or loses any value. Dude, so one of my life-changing moments in my career was someone told me to ask the question do you have anything that acts acts like life insurance, stock spawns, CDs, 401ks, or anything like that? I did that in an appointment. I'm in my early 20s, and the lady says, I have a million dollars, over a million dollars that I have to roll over because I'm retiring. So I end up, I didn't even know what I was doing, so I I said I'm gonna come back tomorrow. I call someone, they helped me run an illustration, I called a carrier, they helped me run an illustration. It ended up being way more money than we thought, and it was a $95,000 paycheck, one-time deposited. And I was like, this is crazy, bro. What? And they just like direct deposited it like it was like nothing, no problem. And I'm like, this business is now that was my break after grinding and grinding and grinding and grinding. That was like me catching a break. Yeah, and I always think about that when people don't ask the question about annuities. So then I started to think, how do I sell them? And I believe stress, financial stress kills. Like it can significantly harm somebody's health. So when I started meeting with people, I started to sell it like it's a life insurance policy. Like I'd be like, Keenan, congratulations on how well you're doing. You're taking care of your lovely wife. One day you'll probably you'll have one. But if something happens to you, if we get this in place, we can make sure that the market can't crash and everything you worked for your whole life to take care of your wife gets cut in half or goes away and makes her stress financially. So whether you're here or not, you can be sure that she's taken care of and that that money's gonna be there. So I started to sell it in an emotional way, which I was like, yo, this is crazy, this is this is the best product ever because everybody wins. The person doesn't want to risk this portion of the money they're putting in. Yeah, they can still participate in the upside. A lot of times people can say that liquidity is a problem. So, like in most annuities, you can't take out more than 10% for seven to ten years. Yeah. And then I started learning all these phrases like your tax footprint. And I would be like, Keenan, you wouldn't want to take all the money out in one year because you would pay taxes on all that, and you need it for longevity. So the liquidity thing is not a problem for seven to ten years to have your money there and only be able to access ten percent per year. But I started to learn to emotionally sell this, which I think is kind of missing in the sale. Yeah. But how do you get people to trust you? Because you're young. Yeah, like why would they listen to you? So I've only had like a handful of annuity situations, I think about five, six annuity situations. I recently just came back from an appointment I ran last week. I actually drove from Arizona all the way to this client's house in California. It was a 12 hour drive. Where in California? San Diego. Okay. So I drove from Phoenix all the way over there, and pretty much ran the appointment. Um, but he had a half million dollars, and he's 71 years old, and you know he He just wants to make sure that the money he has now and his you know 401k it doesn't you know lose value. So exactly how you explain like the emotional aspect of where you're getting them to understand how would that you know look like for your wife if anything happened to this retirement is the same thing I do. Um now I think it's super important to be able to like connect with your client. Um like I think helping them with the life insurance is the first part because it makes it easier, you know, when you ask that question and you obviously take your notes and look, okay, like we protected them with the life insurance, and they did mention they had a you know account here or here. Um now you want to revisit it and obviously, you know, state, you know, obviously like with those accounts, you you do want to make sure that you know that money that you have there that you don't outlive it, right? Mm-hmm. And so when explaining it, you want to keep it as simple as possible. I think when you make things super complicated, it becomes harder for them to digest. So really just understanding them as a person first, getting that trust, and then leading with emotions. Love it. That's a perfect one. But then you're gonna learn once you start doing this, if you're a new agent, all you gotta do is say you identify it and then tell them that you're gonna call them back with illustrations, and the carrier or someone that works here can prepare those, help you prepare those. And then you can go back with something in writing that you can follow along with. Yeah. Because there's a lot of things you're gonna learn, but a lot of people, if they quit their job, they can move their 401k into an annuity, and it's it's uh they're allowed to move it because they're no longer working there. Sometimes a job will allow you to move it while you are working there, but it's not common, right? But you can still do that. But that guy, the seven-year-old, he's gonna get a bonus. What's the bonus on that? It was twenty-five thousand. So he's gonna get a twenty-five thousand dollar bonus, yeah, and it can also earn interest and participate in the upside, and it can never go down. Yeah, seven years. Did you sell it? We're still we're still closing it. Good for you, man. So he wasn't, but you drove, check this out. He drove 12 hours one way, both ways. I literally I drove here. Bro, you're a road warrior. Yeah, hey, you wrote you drove 12 hours one way to an appointment that you didn't sell. Were you mad? I wasn't like bashing things. No, I wasn't mad at all. It was all about the uh experience. Like, first and foremost, like that was my first time ever driving to an annuity appointment. But a half a million dollars this is his entire retirement. So he's more emotionally invested than I am, so I want to make sure he knows like I'm here for his best interest. So I printed out the illustration, literally put in my suitcase, hopped in my car, brought two people with me so they can make sure I don't fall asleep on the road and I was at it. And you know, on the way back, I'm just explaining to them like you know how I'm feeling about like everything, the conversation we had with the client, and you know, I'm still hyped because it was just a great experience all around. And if I left a good footprint as I, you know, visited him and told him like I drove over here to give you some you know pastries, but I also wanted to make sure you know I'm in your best interest. So it's all about just doing good by people, and you know, if I win, lose, or fail, like I still learn. Yeah, bro, that's solid. I could see you doing a lot of annuities in IULs, like as you say continue to do this. Because you understand it really well. It was there anybody that taught you that, or you just get on calls? What'd you do? Um, I did have a mentor in the beginning um with my practice company. Um and you know, he's no longer with us, but um I think having a mentor is really important so you are able to, you know, learn and grow with the information they have, and you know, don't limit yourself as well to just one person that you learn from. Learn from everybody, but also understand that if you learn something, you gotta implement it. Yeah. That's huge, bro. And well, how much money have you saved doing this? I'm just curious. About that's a that's a good question, because it's like I'd I'd make 10 grand, set it aside, make 10 grand. And I'm asking because I want I want you to tell the truth. Like just because his numbers look good, he's still invest you're still investing a lot of money back in, right? Yes. Yeah. So I've been able to sell um, as you said, 145,000 in target premium, and from that month, I was able to set uh save sixty thousand. You saved so you put away sixty thousand. Yeah. So you're s you're not you're not gonna are now what car do you want to buy? Oh, you want to buy your parents a Ferrari? Wait, you want to buy your parents a house? Yeah, I want a Ferrari, I want to buy my parents a house. I got some work to do. That'd be awesome, dude. Yeah. What kind of Ferrari? Uh SF90. Awesome, bro. What are you gonna do first? The house or the Ferrari? The house. Dude, that'd be so cool. You should do like a grand opening for your parents' house. I seen Tanner Mendelson. Um, you know, he's my age, he just bought a house for his mom. Alright, and you know, Wiley, guys like them, like they're doing exactly what I, you know, pursue to do for my family. And so like that's why they do see that success is because like their reason why they're in this business is so much bigger. How old are all your siblings? Okay, you don't even know. My my older sister, she's 25, my younger sister, she's 18. I have a younger brother, he's 18. Um, younger sister, she's 16. Mom, dad, if I'm wrong, don't hate me. Um, I have another younger brother that's fifteen, another younger brother that's fifteen as well, another younger brother that's Is this a blended family or all blended family? Yeah. That's awesome. Cool, man. But you know, I live with all of them at you know certain point in times in my life, and yeah, you know, I'd have really, really good relationships with all of my brothers and sisters. Like I love them to death. So are they gonna sell insurance? I hope so. Uh my brother, yeah, he's playing football, and you know, I said, hey, listen, just focus on what you got going on right now, finish with your your school, your grades, get your you know, academics right. You know, I want you to play football, you know, because I went to school to play football and I didn't finish, so I want him to finish. Like you went to college or high school? College. What college? University of New Haven in Connecticut. Nice. Interesting. Cause FFL's in Connecticut. Yeah. Drew, w was there an office in New Haven at some point? I think it's always just been in Uncasville. Hmm. How far is that from Uncasville? You don't even know. No, I don't know Uncasville. What about the Mohegan Sun Casino? Do you know where that is? I do know that, yeah. Because that's what the office is by. Yeah. How far was that from your college? 20 minutes. Oh, so you grew up right where FFL it headquarters is. Yeah. I went to school out there for about a year, and um, yeah, it's pretty small out there, right? Yeah. Why didn't you finish? I couldn't really relate to like a lot of the people there because I couldn't like find out what I was going to school for, and I didn't see a what next. So, like what I mean by that is like after school, where do you see yourself, Keenan? And I can never answer that question because it was always just sports. It was always I want to play football at the highest level, I wanted to go play NFL, right? But me being young, naive, you know, I I did understand, like, realistically, like I'm 5'11, 180. A lot of these guys got really, really good talent, you know, 6'4. Freak genetic. You know, like you gotta be able to understand, like, longevity is what matters. Imagine Sean Merriman hitting you. Yeah, he's a linebacker, defensive end. Yeah, defensive end or linebacker. Linebacker, that's how he got his name. Lights out. Yeah. He said uh he got the nickname Lights Out because he knocked four kids unconscious his senior year playing in one game. And you know, the co the coaching staff, you know, they're they're uh, you know, they don't really care. They want you back on the field, so they'll you know, give you a towel and all and tell you to get right back out there. You've got a whole dislocated shoulder, mind you. So you gotta you gotta understand health is your wealth, and like if you know you see like your body deteriorating and you're in sports, like you want to definitely make sure you taking care of your body, taking care of your mind. Love that, bro. You're a smart kid. All right, thank you for coming in. Thank you for sharing. We want to get you back in and get an update as you grow. It's a pleasure to be in business with you. I think you helped a ton of people by sharing your story and what you know about IULs and annuities. But yeah, bro, you the man. Thank you, dude. Sir, I appreciate you. Oh, I'm so excited for this.