Insurance Solutions for Business Owners

Speaker 1 (00:02):

Welcome everybody to another episode of the Alliance Group podcast. We have a really awesome episode today. We have, uh, two awesome guys from, uh, American National, uh, you might know them as anaco. We've got Dominic Etienne, uh, who is the Pension sales consultant, uh, at American National. And of course you guys all know Michael Harden. He's our National sales manager. He is our friend at Alliance Group. Uh, we actually just finished guys a really awesome advanced training camp, the 2022 advanced training camp. Uh, and Dominic, uh, and Michael, you guys were, were, were featured basically all day in day two. What we wanted to talk about today, and what I wanted to get on the podcast, uh, for all of our viewers to see was the subject matter of the first part of today where we really focused on, on pensions and how life insurance agents at Alliance Group with just their life insurance licenses, have the ability, and I don't think a lot of agents realize this, to help every business owner that they know set up retirement plans for themselves and for their employees. So, Dominic, you were, we, we were kind of talking about this, we were in the, in the room kind of preparing for the podcast, and I was like, well, who, what, what types of business owners would this be a good conversation to have, uh, about setting up retirement plans?

Speaker 2 (01:18):

Right? Right. And you were trying to be specific in a sense, uh, identifying, you know, is there a certain type of business owner that I should approach? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, does this make sense for one business owner compared to another? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, as I, the only thing I tried to relay is there is not a small business owner out there that cannot utilize a retirement plan to some degree

Speaker 3 (01:38):

Or possible Yeah. Possible use one. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:40):

Right, right, right. It could be a sole proprietor, it could be an, uh, an employer with a certain number of, uh, of employees. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it could be a business that already has a retirement plan in place. Right. We still have options that they can utilize and benefits that we can provide them, whether that's from a plan review standpoint or exploring new plan opportunities. Right. Right. And, you know, if they try to give you a little pushback there, there are, there are so many different benefits that the plans provide, you know, whether that is the retirement benefit itself, you know, retirement savings, retirement income mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, whether that's expanding on what the employer offers from an employee benefit package Right. As well. Right. You know, a low cost way to, to improve what, what you're offering, especially in a competitive job market, which which we find

Speaker 1 (02:26):

Ourselves in, which we definitely have. Right, right, right now. So even, you know, whether that's, uh, making sure that you retain employees that are important to you. Absolutely. Because right now people are, if you have talent on your payroll, people are searching for that talent, right? Oh, yeah. So more important than ever for you to have not just a retirement plan, but a competitive retirement

Speaker 3 (02:46):

Plan. As I'm talking to business owners when working with y'all's agents and all this, and hearing the business owners talk, um, with today's job market the way it is, you know, uh, one of the guys was telling me the other day when he gets applicants in, one of the first things he looks at is are they already employed? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Now, it's kinda scary to think about this if you're his competition, he says, because if you're not employed right now, why?

Speaker 1 (03:11):

Right,

Speaker 3 (03:12):

Right, right. Do you not wanna work? Are you only applying because you have to have the money? Or did you recently get fired and why? Right. Right. So he really asked that question of why don't you already have a job? So he said, more often than not, when he's looking for talent for an asset to bring into his business, and employers have changed their kind of their mindset with that. They're no longer just needed as employees, but they're becoming assets, talent, like you said. Right? Yep. He goes and looks at the competition because those people have the job. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they're keeping the job, so he knows they are viable to bring into his business. So Right. Everyone in his competition, they're his, they're his target.

Speaker 1 (03:50):

Absolutely. And it's not, it's not just, um, it's not just as you were kind of alluding to there, it's not just retaining your current, you know, employees that, that are very important to your business and that, and, and that, that make it go. It's also attracting talent. If your business is growing, you need to bring more quality talent in. You can't attract talent these days. It's becoming harder and harder to attract talent if you don't have, again, not only a retirement package to offer, but a competitive one.

Speaker 2 (04:17):

I mean, employees these days are like buyers. Yep. They're comparing all options that they have, you know, at their disposal. Yep. Right. And they wanna make sure that they're maximizing every opportunity that comes their way. Yep. They kinda across to this, you know, so it's not just, like you said, retaining, it's obtaining Yes. Employees also.

Speaker 1 (04:36):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:38):

There was a, I forget who it was, I'm always bad about knowing who the study has come from, but I saw something the other day that said salary alone was not the number one determining factor in everybody's minds. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's, it's the quality of the workplace. It's the benefits package. Right. Right. They'll, they'll sacrifice a little bit on the salary part to like where they're going and to have those other features and benefits now from their employer. Yep.

Speaker 1 (04:58):

Right. So as far as these, these options that are available for agents to help, um, business owners set up for themselves and their employees, you've got the 401k, you've got safe harbor, you got pr, profit sharing, uh, plans you have, and then defined Ben benefit plans, which there are, are several. Right. Um, as far as an agent that's wanting to, to have a conversation kind of backing up for a second with a business owner, what are some of those things that that, that you can say to a business owner to kind of get, get the conversation started,

Speaker 2 (05:30):

Kind of get the conversation going, kind of break the ice mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, so to speak. You know, there's a couple big factors and big reasons that employers establish number one, tax deductions mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right. And the tax benefits that the plans provide that we offer.

Speaker 1 (05:45):

Absolutely. It isn't all, you know, it isn't all, you know completely, uh, what the word I'm looking for, uh, I'm not gonna find it, but it isn't out of the goodness of their heart

Speaker 2 (05:53):

No, no, no. All the time.

Speaker 1 (05:54):

Right? Right.

Speaker 3 (05:55):

It's not, it's not cause they love you.

Speaker 1 (05:56):

Right, right, right. Might be a, a little bit of that, but also they are looking at how is this gonna benefit me?

Speaker 2 (06:02):

Absolutely. You know, I'm not gonna call it ulterior motives mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but they want to be able to provide themselves with a significant benefit if they're taking on that commitment Right. Of pro providing that benefit as well. Of course, because they're taking on a cost. Absolutely. And they're taking on a, a fiduciary responsibility at the same time, so they wanna know that they're getting something out of it. Is it worth their while? Right. I mean, these days people like to use in different aspects of life, roi, they wanna get a, a nice return on their investment. Right.

Speaker 1 (06:31):

In this, which is really interesting because, you know, you are getting kind of, that's a, that's a dual benefit that they're getting. Not only are you able to retain employees and, and, and make them love you and, and, you know, give them all those good warm fuzzies about this, you know, this business owner, this guy that I work for, really cares about my future and my family's future. But you're also, on the other hand, getting these benefits for yourself, the business owner. Right. Right. There's, which is something that, that we absolutely should be, uh, pointing at,

Speaker 2 (06:58):

Pointing to, pointing to <laugh>, there's the optics of the plan, right. You know what that customer from the outside of the window Uhhuh sees Yep. That employee uhhuh, and then there's notes and bolts behind the plan. Yeah. You know, what, what really is occurring behind the curtain, right? Right. And so what we try to do from a design standpoint is we understand who that decision maker ultimately is mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So if we wanna reach the employees, we have to first make sure that we make a hard sell in a hard case to that actual business owner and whoever they consider important as well, and make sure that the plans look as enticing and incentivizing as possible. Right. To them. So we try to create plans that favor those business owners.

Speaker 1 (07:38):

Right. So you use an example of, uh, just maybe the simplest, uh, example that they can come to your mind about for those, uh, of our viewers who might not understand, well, how is it, what, what are these tax advantages? I don't understand. So a business owner pre prior to, to having set up a retirement plan for his employees had x situation, but since he set it up, he was able to say, y in taxes. Like, give me a, a really simple example of, of how that would work.

Speaker 2 (08:04):

Let's just take a simple small employer of, uh, five employees mm-hmm. <affirmative> and an owner. Okay. Right. You have, uh, you have an owner, let's say their annual taxable, uh, kind of profitability income is about $200,000. Okay? Right. You have five employees, those five employees that business owner has decided, Hey, I wanna give them each $5,000, regardless of what their salary is as a employer contribution. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right? So that is a tax deductible contribution that's going into their retirement savings account. Okay.

Speaker 1 (08:36):

So $25,000,

Speaker 2 (08:38):

$25,000 total. Okay. But there are situations where we can utilize some of our plan designs, and we may be able to provide that employer, that owner with an opportunity to give himself $50,000 on top of it, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so what we've just created there is an opportunity for $75,000 cumulative combined mm-hmm. <affirmative> to be saved away, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> into the applicable, uh, retirement savings accounts. Yep. $50,000 of that is being retained by the owner, two thirds of the contribution that goes in, right? Right. Uhhuh being retained by the one owner and $75,000 is the pure tax deduction that the business receives as, as a result of it. Right. So instead of that owner paying $200,000 on taxes that year mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they're paying taxes on $125,000 Yep. And 75,000 is going into the plan, $50,000 is being retained by him.

Speaker 1 (09:27):

So you could, you, you could bank the argument that that by itself was worth doing the plan, but then you've got all those other benefits that we talked about, right. The stickiness of the, of the employees, the, uh, attracting others with this great retirement plan that you're providing, the, the, the warm fuzzies, uh, of the employees. You know, this guy, you know, is doing this for us, which is, which is great. Yep. Yeah. Um, you,

Speaker 3 (09:46):

You were talking earlier about who to who they're good for, who they're, you know, which companies to work for and all those, one of the questions I use with the business owners and with agents to ask folks they know, so it's a more comfortable questions, like mm-hmm. <affirmative>, did you write out a check to the IRS this year? Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (09:59):

<affirmative>.

Speaker 3 (09:59):

Yeah. And if they nod Yes. How much of that would you rather put in your pocket?

Speaker 2 (10:03):

Yeah. I mean, in that situation, tell me more

Speaker 1 (10:05):

And

Speaker 3 (10:05):

Think about, just get some numbers in, just look at what we can do. Right. Right, right,

Speaker 2 (10:07):

Right. And in that particular scenario, it might be costing them money by not executing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> a plan at the end of the day, and,

Speaker 1 (10:15):

And, and, and, and let's be honest, there's Yes. You know, lots of business owners are financially savvy and they know things about, there's a lot of business owners out there that are not savvy at all, especially when it comes to things like, like taxes and, and, and some of these strategies that we're talking about. So some, sometimes the most effective kind of conversation opener is exactly with something like what Michael just said, like, how much was your tax bill? I guarantee, no matter how financially savvy or not they are, they're gonna know what that check last year know. That's, I know exactly what my check was last year that I wrote. Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (10:44):

Right. And sometimes the smartest people in the world are the ones that are willing to admit, I don't know this. Yeah. <laugh>. Right. But you know what? I do know, I need to find out, I need to find someone who does exactly

Speaker 3 (10:53):

<laugh>. And, and, and Dominic mentioned it earlier, uh, CPAs don't know as much, as much as we all give them credit for, for, for knowing all, so to speak mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? CPAs don't know about retirement plans. Right. They know where to put it on your tax return. They specialize in that as far as designing a plan or knowing which plan's best, or even recommending one like that, A lot of times they don't even know what to do with

Speaker 2 (11:16):

It. And, and, and, and I will give them credit, like they can identify a problem. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, they know that mm-hmm. Deductions are needed mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right. They know that a retirement plan can offer 'em mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but they don't know exactly which type of retirement plan can really maximize mm-hmm. <affirmative> what's best for that particular situation. And that's what

Speaker 1 (11:34):

Your

Speaker 2 (11:34):

Team does, and that's what we do.

Speaker 3 (11:35):

Absolutely. And that's a good referral center, finding that CPA that knows they need something and then you provide that for 'em. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:40):

So if, if agents can get comfortable, uh, with having this conversation with, literally, as, as Dominic was saying, every business owner that, you

Speaker 2 (11:48):

Know, every single business,

Speaker 3 (11:50):

If they wrote out their checks

Speaker 2 (11:52):

On retirement plan

Speaker 1 (11:53):

Needs retirement plan, even if it's a one one person, which one person, one person plan, many of our viewers are right. That person, they are a, a life insurance agent that that works for themselves. And they are a, a, a solopreneur, you know, so they're, they're the only employee in their company. Even they, you know,

Speaker 3 (12:08):

One, one of the top money earning agents at my old agency was, uh, lived in California. So federal and state, just, you know, choking on taxes, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and like we were talking earlier, a high revenue business can be low deductions in this, there's not a volume of expense in being, in being in the insurance business. Right? Right. So she was paying tax on $800,000 profit Wow. State and federal. Right. And so one of the largest, uh, four twelves we put in place was for this young lady, she was putting away 143 grand a year. Right. And taking it right off the top of her taxes.

Speaker 2 (12:38):

Exactly. It, it goes at a, as an expense on her schedule C mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so that's a pure deduction on that schedule C mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so when that income passes to the 10 40, it reduces her income, her taxable income. By that contribution that she made to that four 12 people,

Speaker 3 (12:55):

Her, her tax savings was 53 grand

Speaker 1 (12:58):

<laugh>. Wow. Wow. So

Speaker 2 (13:00):

That's, that's significant. That is

Speaker 1 (13:01):

Significant. That is significant. That is significant. Even the people who aren't financially savvy know that that

Speaker 3 (13:06):

Is significant. That's not a small chunk

Speaker 2 (13:07):

Of change. I think we can all appreciate that amount.

Speaker 1 (13:09):

So if, if agents can get comfortable again with this conversation, anco, you guys have tools that can kind of, that an agent can refer to to help them have these conversations or learn how to have these conversations, right? Yep. Um, and, and,

Speaker 2 (13:23):

And, but I failed to kind of focus on initially, and the question is kinda what provoked the response is that with American National, we've developed a product that as an insurance agent, in order for you to actually be the agent of record and sell this platform, sell all of these different plans that we offer, all you need is a life or annuities license in the state that your client is located domicile in,

Speaker 1 (13:45):

Which we all are used to anyway, because that's what you have to have to sell a life insurance

Speaker 2 (13:49):

Policy. Exactly. It was the same.

Speaker 3 (13:50):

That was gonna be one of my questions. Now for you do, so we're sitting here at Alliance Group. Yeah. Alliance Group is an insurance agency. Right. And we're talking about retirement plans, 401ks, different things like that. And I'm sure everybody out there is going, well, how am I gonna do that? I don't have a securities license. And, and you just brought that up. So how does that work?

Speaker 2 (14:07):

There was a specific caveat in the Securities Act of 1936. So

Speaker 3 (14:12):

The

Speaker 2 (14:13):

Original one, the original one that came out mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yes. This has been around that long <laugh> that's stipulated, right? If you have an insurance product, and that insurance product is sold exclusively, meaning only to trustees of qualified retirement plans, that that insurance product itself didn't have to be registered with a securities exchange commission. Right. Uhhuh, this product falls into that category and to the product. That itself doesn't have to be registered. The insurance agent selling it doesn't need to be registered either.

Speaker 1 (14:42):

Wow. So wait, what is this? What is this product?

Speaker 2 (14:45):

This product, it is a variable annuity. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, just the name itself gives consternation and makes you think I have to be, I, I gotta be rri Uhhuh, <affirmative>, R I or I gotta be securities license to sell this bad boy. But it's a non-registered variable. Annuity means that we've gone to all, I would say all 50, but New York's a little bit different. <laugh>, right? Yeah. Right. New York's d that different, new York's different, and also Connecticut and Massachusetts, but the other 47 states have approved the product as, uh, as submitted as a group. Meaning as, yeah. As a group. As group. Meaning you do not have to be securities license in those 47 states in order to be the agent of record and the agent on the contract for this particular product. Now, Connecticut and Massachusetts, they allow it to be sold. You can't sell it at all in New York, but in Connecticut and Mass, you still do have to be an ra. You have to be securities license to sell it in. Gotcha.

Speaker 3 (15:34):

So, so, so you're saying that, that any of the folks we're talking to, right. Can, can do this with us without that securities license?

Speaker 2 (15:43):

No additional requirements needed. If you can sell life, you can sell annuities, you can sell retirement plans.

Speaker 3 (15:49):

So, so if they find a client, what do they do next? If they find somebody that wants to see what their numbers look like or what the the possibilities are, what do they do next?

Speaker 2 (15:58):

We try to keep it as simple as possible for you. Yeah, let's do that. <laugh>. Right? All you need to do gather information. We have a fact finder that kind of guide you in that information that we need. Right?

Speaker 1 (16:08):

Right. Gather all the information about, about the individual, the business owner, the business, the employees,

Speaker 2 (16:13):

Right? And what we're talking about, we're talking about how's the corporation taxed, right? Um, do they own any additional businesses mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? What are they looking to spend in the plan? Like what's their budget? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? What's their cash flow? What's their income? Like? Is it consistent or does it, does it vary by year to year? It's fluctuated, right? Right. And then we wanna know, okay, you're establishing a plan. What's the most important priority? Right? Are you looking to maximize the tax deduction? Are you using it for those employee benefit reasons, retention, or, or, uh, obtaining new employees? Yep. Do you wanna favor key employees yourself? Do you wanna be able to put in as little or as much as you can for you and your employees? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? Let us know what you're prioritizing. Do you have a specific pan plan? Type in mind, all of those.

Speaker 1 (16:55):

This is all on the fact, fact, you is all

Speaker 2 (16:57):

Don't have to, the fact to think about this, you don't have create cover letter. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Right. We provide you a form and you just simply regurgitate the information, just

Speaker 3 (17:03):

Fill in the

Speaker 2 (17:04):

Blank. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> recite it, provide it over to us. But most importantly, we want a census. We wanna see who that, who that employer is from a demographic standpoint. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, how many employees they have, how long they've been there, how old they are. Some estimation of how much they make on an annual basis. Right. And who owns the business? Anybody related to 'em. But again, we kind of guide you through Yeah. There's what we're looking

Speaker 1 (17:24):

For, FactFinder that you have to fill out and you send in to your team at aico does, and what, what do you guys do with that information again? And, and the thing I wanna underline to agents here is because some agents out there might be like, dude, I don't, this is a lot I have to learn, I have to know every little detail about how a 401K works as opposed to a safe harbor and defined benefit plans and the different types and the four 12 E three s and the cash balance. And you don't necessarily have to know all of this. Have a team behind you that can help you once they have this fact finder, you guys take that information and then you actually do the work of figuring out what is best for this business and making that recommendation.

Speaker 2 (18:02):

We wanna fund which plan type fits that client's needs and objectives, demographics the best. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right. Kind of, you know, comparing it to a normal insurance or, or life sale. We expect that client to be with us for in perpetuity. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> great. Right? And so for that client,

Speaker 1 (18:23):

These plans kind of go into place and they stay there the entire

Speaker 2 (18:24):

Time and stay there the entire time. So we gotta make sure that upfront we're, we're taking care of what the client needs. Right. You know, so from that standpoint, we don't want you to be or feel like you have to be an expert mm-hmm. <affirmative>, because sometimes that may lead you to promising something that we may not be able to deliver on the back end. Right. If you promise the client a cash balance plan and we get the information, we assess and we determine they are a safe harbor client, that's cash balance plan. Right? Right. We're gonna provide you with the cash balance illustration cuz you asked for it. Right. We're also gonna give you the safe harbor illustration and tell you why that's a better fit,

Speaker 1 (18:58):

Which is exactly what I as an agent want you to do. Right.

Speaker 2 (19:01):

Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (19:02):

Check my work and if I'm wrong, please let me know so that I can, you know Right. Make the right recommendation to the

Speaker 2 (19:07):

Client. And what that's done though is that's created maybe a little tougher of a road for us to travel. Right. So, because now we have to kind of take that client off of the expectation of the cash balance, bring 'em down off that horse. Yeah. Yeah. And then put 'em on the little pony on this <laugh>. So you

Speaker 1 (19:23):

Would

Speaker 3 (19:23):

Rather, I wouldn't say it that way. No. Safe harbor's not really a little pony

Speaker 2 (19:26):

Now. Right. Not the little pony necessarily, but they, in, in the

Speaker 1 (19:29):

Business

Speaker 2 (19:29):

Owner's mind, they have these illusions of granger, you know, <laugh>. Right.

Speaker 1 (19:33):

So, so basically what what what you're getting at here is you would, you would rather, you actually prefer, and your team prefers, don't try to go down any particular road ahead of time. Make sure that they see the value and, and, and that they're interested in setting up a, a retirement plan of some sort. Uh, or even if they already have one, maybe just taking a look at something that might work better for, for their business. Right. And then just getting the information and getting it to you guys so that you can make the right recommendation. And from that point. Yeah. Um, and, and, and, and this is what I think is really important for agents to understand. From that point, you guys really do take the reins and, and help the agent make this thing happen. They are, they are supported. They will never have a a time where they're twisting in the wind. You guys are are, are on it and helping them every step of the way. As you described it, Dom, you were, you were saying either we can be on the, the sale, the actual quote unquote sales call. Once we have the recommendation, we can be on that call with you or we can coach you up on how to have that conversation on your own. Correct. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:31):

As you know, as I like to said, we'll be as involved as you want us to be. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, whether that, uh, kind of entails us coaching you up until you feel comfortable and confident to make that presentation in that pitch yourself. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, absolutely. We'll get you to that point. Right. But if you want to wanna bring us along for the ride, we are more than willing to take that ride with you

Speaker 1 (20:50):

Right. Now, the one thing that we, we kind of talked about earlier, Michael, you were, you were telling the story of a, of a client that was like, well, they didn't just take it from there and just do, enroll everybody and all that stuff. For me, I have to actually sit down and enroll every one of these employees.

Speaker 3 (21:03):

They sure said that to me. I couldn't believe

Speaker 1 (21:04):

It. Why was, why was that so unbelievable to you?

Speaker 3 (21:07):

Well, once, once an employer says yes to I, I, I'm still dumbfounded by it. Right? <laugh>, once, once an employer says yes to the plan, you have access to all the employees. You get to sit down with everybody the company has and explain what the employer just did. Plus have all those conversations you guys know how to have. Anyway, so, so Dominic, so how long you been here with this company?

Speaker 2 (21:30):

Six and a half

Speaker 3 (21:31):

Years. Six and a half years. The first place you ever worked?

Speaker 2 (21:34):

Nope.

Speaker 3 (21:34):

Nope. Nope. Where'd you work before?

Speaker 2 (21:36):

Charles Schwab <laugh>.

Speaker 3 (21:37):

Okay. So did you have a 401K back at Charlie Schwab?

Speaker 2 (21:40):

Absolutely. <laugh>.

Speaker 3 (21:41):

There you go. Right. So you get to have all these conversations, right? Married, how the kids, what's the age of the kids? Do you have college funding in place? All those things. You have life insurance

Speaker 1 (21:51):

In

Speaker 3 (21:51):

Place, all those things. You guys do never heard

Speaker 1 (21:52):

Living

Speaker 3 (21:53):

Benefits, right? As you're signing these people up, right? No. And so the, the 401ks or the pension plans, right? When, like Dominic said, those are in place, you know, 10, 20, 30 years mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? So you do a handful of these a year and that's an income base for you every single year as that's coming in. Plus all the other, plus all the other stuff

Speaker 1 (22:11):

You find the opportunities that actually spawn off of it.

Speaker 3 (22:13):

Spawn off of it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:14):

Which is really what you see. The agents we were talking, uh, you know, before we started rolling on the podcast, it's, you know, you you said the first case is always kind of, that's, that, that's the learning experience. Agents aren't really sure how is this gonna go? But what you tend to see is that once somebody gets a case through and works with, with you and your team and gets people enrolled and gets a plan set up and rolling, they're, they're back for more.

Speaker 2 (22:38):

You'll be surprised mm-hmm. <affirmative> how many life, career annuity and life agents, once they sell two or three retirement plans, tell us, I'm only doing this <laugh> from this point on

Speaker 1 (22:51):

Because

Speaker 3 (22:51):

I'm

Speaker 1 (22:52):

Serious, but because that's awesome. What it can actually serve as is. Yes, of course. You're, you are getting paid commissions and that and, and that, as we kind of just talked about, it does kind of, you know, you don't get that big lump sum up front like we are sometimes used to when it comes to, you know, selling a life insurance policy. You get that big commission up front and then little, little tiny, you know, commissions after that. This is more of a steady stream that happens every single year. You, every single year build almost like a quote unquote salary. Like you're like building this base throughout the years as far as strictly the commissions from setting up the retirement plans go. However, what we were just discussing is, I think the more valuable part is this is almost like a, an amazing prospecting system because you just got 50, let's say an, you know, an, an employer has 50 employees. You're sitting down with 50 new prospects and talking to them about money, their family, their retirement plans, their life insurance, their annuity, you know, all this

Speaker 3 (23:43):

Stuff. Well, what

Speaker 2 (23:44):

Other, is it gonna get you the chance to sit in front of a room of 50 individuals right. In one shot?

Speaker 3 (23:51):

Yep. Well, and, and you know, probably not quite half, but half of all the meetings we do half of winter, you know, uh, winter summit, uh, we're talking about the MGA meeting. All these things we're focused around in, I don't know, roughly half, not quite half your agencies now they buy leads for the mortgage protection, you know, to, to find somebody to talk to

Speaker 1 (24:11):

One person. Just one

Speaker 3 (24:12):

Person. Right. <laugh>. And you take this,

Speaker 1 (24:14):

It's not even a person, it's a phone number you have to call and then you hopefully get a

Speaker 3 (24:18):

Person, hopefully they answer. Right? Right. This is just, this is baked right in. Right. You're the, the number one thing we do in this business is to, to prospect. To find people to talk to. Right. Right. So with all that you guys said earlier with the, the, the employment, the way it is, the, the savers programs, the way those are coming out, any of these things, you have maybe the best opportunity in the world to just go out and go, Hey, did you know this is going on? Did you know this? Did you know this? How is this? And it turns into whatever. It turns into, you got a reason to talk to somebody.

Speaker 1 (24:50):

Not to mention that the very first time that these people are meeting you, they're sitting down at work probably right then and you're there and you are here as someone who's representing the entire company's pension plan. Yep. Right? Yeah. So you already have credibility. Huge, huge. Uh, as a, okay, well this guy obviously knows what he's doing. Um, you know, when it comes to money. So when you start talking to 'em about things that they can do in their, in their personal lives, um, you already have that, that kind of built in credibility.

Speaker 3 (25:16):

Yeah. You got that leg up already. Yep.

Speaker 2 (25:18):

It's, it's called trust.

Speaker 1 (25:19):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:20):

Yeah. You have their trust. Yep. You know, you've provided them with the benefit that they value. If there are any additional needs from that point forward, they're gonna at least give you a try.

Speaker 1 (25:30):

Right? Yeah, exactly. So once you get the, the, the, this, this plan set up, right, um, what happens from there, like once everyone's enrolled and the plan's going, the way that I kind of understood it is you're,

Speaker 3 (25:45):

You're done.

Speaker 1 (25:46):

You guys are gonna handle everything from there as far as the administration of these plans going forward. And you can, we want you, as you said, go find the next

Speaker 2 (25:51):

One. Absolutely. We want you as agents at that point to be free of responsibilities mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And we want you to be able to go out there and access and attack. Bring us another one additional clients. Yeah, absolutely. You know, so we, we take on the administration, full administration of the plan. We connect directly with the employer and we are their full service third party administrator. Just like you'd have a, you know, a, a health entity handle the health plan. You know, we come on board and we provide that same level of service, but just from the retirement plan standpoint. So anything that the client has to, has to handle on a regular basis, we assign an account rep so they have a direct point of contact and point of reference to address any needs that that plan may have. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> then against exist.

Speaker 3 (26:33):

So, so what, what, so you're telling me, and I, and I work here, so hang on a second. So you're telling me that, that, that all an agent has to do is call just American National.

Speaker 2 (26:44):

If I make it real simple, agent broaches the topic with client, gets information from client, provides that to American National, we present it to client, client decides to move forward. Agent then rolls out playing to the employees, becomes face of playing everything back office, then gets removed and handled by American national agents'. Responsibilities are pretty much done at that point. It's

Speaker 3 (27:08):

All American National. They don't have to call this place over here or this place over here or that place over there, none of that. They just call us

Speaker 2 (27:15):

One stop shop with one simple telephone exchange.

Speaker 1 (27:19):

You guys are doing great. This is like an infomercial's broken outta here, <laugh>, wait a second. But there's more

Speaker 2 (27:25):

<laugh>,

Speaker 3 (27:26):

It's only 1999. <laugh>

Speaker 1 (27:28):

Sixties you payments of 1999.

Speaker 2 (27:30):

But that is the beauty of these omic plans. Like I said earlier, it's almost like the gift that just keeps on giving. Absolutely. You know, the more you peel away the onion, you know, you'll be surprised at how beautiful the layers get as you go deeper into it.

Speaker 1 (27:42):

Yeah. And you know, the the important thing is of course is that you're, you're helping people, you're helping business owners, you're helping their employees. You're helping these business owners grow their business, retain their key employees, attract, you know, uh, new talent, uh, into the organization. And of course, um, you know, you're, you're, you're doing well by them and doing well for yourself and doing so

Speaker 3 (27:59):

Well. Well, and we do this all the time here, especially with you guys being the living benefits agency, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, we, we sell the IUL because of the tax free retirement account and the living benefits in it, right? Yep. Well, personally, no, I don't know that there could be a better design product for everyday Americans then, then that product, it covers almost everything that they need, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and obviously for W2 folks right now, business owners, you wanna lap this in because business owners can still work with the IOLs. Their family can still have the IOLs, they can do the college planning, they can do all that. Business owners have, uh, Dominic said earlier, you got a whole Schedule C that a W2 person doesn't even have to work with. And so you can use all of these even, even if we believe taxes are gonna go up in the future. I know we all believe that and we sell that that way. That's still gonna be more money than if they save nothing and give it to the IRS for a business owner. So these all go hand in hand and, and, and round and round and just complete the circle. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:53):

What are some other, um, you know, uh, other advantages to using to going through anaco for something like this, um, than a business owner might have for some of those bigger names out there that, that do 401ks far as fees go, as far as things like that?

Speaker 2 (29:09):

Right. Well, kind of our bundle package and kinda what separates us from some of our competitors out there, first and foremost is client experience. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, where we actually assign that account representative to really be that day-to-day contact for that, uh, employee to kind of reach out to mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, that separates us from those payroll companies. They don't wanna have any interaction. They want that plan to be able to be automated so easily that they don't have to have that interaction on a regular basis Right. With anyone on, on the outside,

Speaker 3 (29:37):

Which really cuts into the design. Right.

Speaker 2 (29:39):

Right, right. And you know, we kind of talked about the framework of the designs are kind of rigid, but that those pictures can be customized and can be delicate and can be utilized to create, you know, something beautiful mm-hmm. <affirmative> for the client Yeah. As well. And that's where the customization comes into play. Right. Right. You know, ADP may not be able to create that disparity that I was talking about earlier. Right. With those contributions cuz they don't wanna have to make that calculation Right. On an annual basis. Right. That actually takes some analysis Right. That someone has to go in and actually assist. Right. And we do that though, right. You know, and, and we want to take on that service, but we provide that at a very cost effective, you know, fee, uh, standpoint. Right. And that's really what separates us. It separates us from our competitive in this, in this specific market.

(30:24)
Right. Because as, uh, uh, pardon was Michael was alluding to, if they don't have a paycheck right. Or they don't have a, uh, a, an ADP and they have, you know, kind of a separation of responsibilities where they have like a CPA handling one component of the plan mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they may have a record keeper, someone doing like the actual testing of the plan. Right. Any assets somewhere else, you know, not only from an experience standpoint to get anything done, you gotta call three different entities. Yeah, yeah. Right. But you know what you also have to do, since they're performing work for you, you gotta pay, gotta pay <laugh>

Speaker 1 (30:56):

All three.

Speaker 2 (30:56):

Yeah. That adds up after a while. Yeah. You know, we take care of all of that Right. In house with one communication. Right. And for one low cost across the board.

Speaker 3 (31:08):

Yeah. And you were mentioning

Speaker 2 (31:09):

The in, so we do it cheaper and we do it better and we do it easier. A lot of our components, you

Speaker 3 (31:13):

Were mentioning investment choices earlier too. I didn't know that about how limited any other places were.

Speaker 2 (31:17):

Yeah, yeah. You know, like if you're dealing with these state run planes, they may have four or five investment investment options mm-hmm. <affirmative> for those employees to invest those dollars in. You get to those, uh, payroll providers, they're gonna have anywhere between 1520. I know you get to some of those, uh, you know, known TPAs like a Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, fidelity on this scale mm-hmm. <affirmative>, they're probably gonna offer 20 to 25 of their proprietary funds. Of their proprietary funds. Yeah. Proprietary funds for the most part. We have six fund managers that provide us with a total of 54 investment options for our employee, for our clients' employees to utilize to invest those dollars. Oh. And we also offer him an online investment management service called Morningstar. Yep. And I mentioned I worked for Charles Schwab when I worked for Charles Schwab. We know we also offered our clients Orange, Morningstar, Morningstar, <laugh> <laugh>.

Speaker 3 (32:02):

Right. That's awesome. All

Speaker 2 (32:03):

Right. Exactly.

Speaker 1 (32:04):

Yeah. So yeah, there, there are some really interesting opportunities coming up with talking to, um, to business owners, especially, you know, the beginning of, of this past year. Um, and it's continuing this year, you're starting to see those we we just made mention about them. Those, those kind of, uh, those plans where states are requiring employees or, or, uh, businesses with a minimum amount of employees, they're requiring them to provide a a plan. And if they don't, then they're gonna get automatically opted into these state room plans. Right. State plans.

Speaker 3 (32:38):

Right. And so in some states, it doesn't even matter what size you are. Maryland's rule is if you use a payroll service, they don't even define what it is. So it doesn't have to be an ADP or a paycheck or something outside of your, your company. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, there is no definition. So we're, we're kind of going with the conservative definition of that. If you pay somebody <laugh>,

Speaker 1 (32:55):

Wow.

Speaker 3 (32:55):

You have to opt in to their plan.

Speaker 1 (32:58):

Wow. So this is for those people, simple. That's, that's fish and a barrel. Right.

Speaker 3 (33:03):

What's fish in a barrel? Right. They don't know it's coming. The states, I don't know what California did, but now Maryland, I know, uh, Virginia, there's one coming to Colorado soon. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right. They're not advertising it. They're not telling the business owners. In fact, when we were talking about Denise Aaron earlier, uh, they, there's California business owners that still don't know that this has happened. They still don't know they've missed deadlines and that they owe the gut, they owe California money for each employee. Wow. Yeah. They just, they just haven't told them. Or the, like, like we were talking earlier, the business owners always got their head down running their business. Absolutely. They don't look up and to know any of this. Yeah. So yeah. It's a great opportunity to go, Hey, did you know this was happening? Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (33:39):

Yep.

Speaker 2 (33:39):

Yeah. Which, which is understandable. They, I mean, they're a small business owner to begin with. Lord knows what they have on their plate, they're busy. Yeah. Right. You know, and it's up to us, you know, as industry experts, they kind of provide them with that education. Absolutely. And information. Um, and trust me, they'll appreciate it. Yes.

Speaker 1 (33:57):

They

Speaker 3 (33:57):

Absolutely they will. They definitely will. Yep.

Speaker 1 (33:59):

Well, listen, uh, thank you so much guys. It's been, uh, it's been an awesome conversation. Uh, for those of you who did not catch the 2022 Advanced, uh, markets training that we did, uh, we just wrapped it up literally a couple hours ago. Not sure when you guys might be watching this. You can find on the Alliance group agent portal. Again, Dominic and Michael did an amazing job all day in day two, going into more depth about, uh, uh, about, you know, this topic that we just covered as far as pensions and setting up retirement plans for business owners, uh, but much more as well getting into, uh, four 12 e three plans and things like that. So check that out on the Alliance group, agent portal on the Alliance Academy. And Dom Michael, thank you so much for having us or for being here.

Speaker 2 (34:34):

Thank you, Sam. Appreciate

Speaker 1 (34:36):

It. Appreciate it so much.

Speaker 2 (34:36):

Always good to have it. And this guy had a key role. He kept us on schedule the entire time. Absolutely. Today.

Speaker 1 (34:42):

I mean,

Speaker 2 (34:42):

You, it was our comic relief at point.

Speaker 1 (34:43):

Someone has to, someone has to keep these guys in order for sure. Thank you guys so much again. Thanks Mark. Sam, appreciate you.

Speaker 4 (34:52):

Listen to this interview and more on the Alliance group.

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