Charlie Gipple, CFP, CLU, ChFC

Trillions of dollars of lost productivity. This pandemic has led to immeasurable harm to our industry and our economy. We will never know exactly how much this pandemic will shave off of our nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) because of its impact across multiple industries. This pandemic has led to a massive amount of lost productivity and lethargy—literal sleepiness! What am I referring to? I am not referring to the pandemic that you may think. I am referring to the pandemic of what I call “PPT” or “Presenter Preferential Treatment.”

Now, what do I mean by presenter preferential treatment? In short, this is the presenter’s mindset of putting his/her own needs and convenience over that of those that are listening to the presentation. This can lead to a heavy reliance on pre-canned slides/material, rigidity, and an ineffective presentation. More on this in a bit.

For years I have been discussing this “pandemic.” Of course that terminology, which I have used for about a decade, is strong terminology. After all, what I am referring to is not a literal pandemic. However, I do passionately believe that the impact on one’s business over the long run can be equivalent to that business experiencing a disease. If your business relies on how effectively you communicate a message, and if your message is falling flat, I do not think it is too harsh to use the analogy of your business experiencing a serious illness.

Conversing Versus Presenting
In an environment (COVID-19) where many financial professionals that are reading this are now forced to “present” in a fashion that they are not used to—via video conference for example—I felt it was appropriate to discuss this topic. On many occasions over the years I have been told by financial professionals things like “I am not good in front of an audience, but in one-on-one settings I am fabulous.” Another way of saying that may be, “I am good with conversations, but I am not good at presenting.” If you are one of those folks, you may find value in this column.

There is something about conference calls and video calls (Zoom, Webinar, WebEx, etc.) that add an extra layer of formality to what would otherwise be a “conversation.” This means that for the folks that are maybe more comfortable with just a conversation, well you are now finding yourselves having to conduct your meetings in more of a “presentation” format. This column is designed to address that.

By the way, paradoxically, the best presentations are those that are conversational in nature. More on that in another column. My points below still hold true even if you are “conversing.”

My Observation
To be clear, I have spoken about this PPT topic for years, and have also written about it, because I have observed many speakers in our highly technical and analytical industry that exhibit “room for improvement” in their talks. Lately, it has just become more important to address this issue with the new communication styles that COVID-19 has forced us to adopt.

By the way, this PPT issue is not just in the insurance/finance industry, it is everywhere! I have several friends that are executives in other industries and many times they complain about witnessing what I am referring to here. So, when I cite lost GDP as a result of this “pandemic,” I am not using hyperbole.

Technology Murdered the Communicator
Let me explain in more detail what Presenter Preferential Treatment is through the lens of a history lesson.

I believe that 50+ years ago the proportion of great communicators/presenters was higher than what it is today, largely because of the PPT that we have today. The reason has to do with technology!

Because there are certain information processing traits that all humans have in our DNA that will never go away with time, there are certain components that great presentations have that will never go away with time. A couple of examples would be storytelling, the power of humor, the power of presenter voice inflection, etc. And lastly, our tendencies to be visual learners! This leads me to the notion of “chalk at talk,” as Max Atkinson discusses in his book Lend Me Your Ears. That is, the power of explaining something while drawing visual diagrams simultaneously. Most of us are visual learners and by the presenter drawing visuals while simultaneously narrating his/her drawing, that can add great power to the presentation. Therefore, some of the best presentations you will experience will be with merely a flipchart or whiteboard. I have been laughed at a lot for my primitive whiteboard presentations, but there is science to why I do what I do!

Once upon a time the problem with “chalk and talk” was large audiences. If you were 100 feet back in the back of the room you could not read the whiteboard. Thankfully, this was addressed in the 1960s with the invention of the overhead projector. The overhead projector was great because it prolonged the life of “chalk and talk!”

For the really young folks reading this, the overhead projector allowed you to write with an erasable marker on acetate pages (transparencies), and as you wrote it would project that drawing on the same projector screens that we use today. Overhead projectors used light bulbs and shadows, like how I play finger shadow games with my kids on the wall. Back in the 60s and 70s this technology was great because it would allow professors or any other professional who was presenting to large audiences to draw pictorial items that were visually much larger than what that presenter could do with a chalkboard. Notice: I said, “pictorial items,” not words! Thus, if professionals were explaining something that could be easily drawn as a picture, it was displayed on as big a screen as you could buy.

Well, things started to go sideways in the 1970s and 1980s with the proliferation of printer technology that would allow you to preprint the acetate sheets. Now you had professionals/instructors that could very easily print a million sheets for one presentation. Furthermore, many times those sheets had way too much information on them. This meant that once all of those busy pre-printed sheets were thrown up during a presentation in rapid succession, audiences either experienced “death by a million transparencies” or they would read ahead to the other “preprinted content” on each respective sheet. Thus, the power of the instructor’s words was greatly diminished. Or the audience would experience sensory overload and just check out. Nap time!

Well, it evolved from there when, on May 22, 1990, Microsoft released an easier way for presenters to put their audiences to sleep—Microsoft PowerPoint! And that is when the pandemic of PPT spread like wildfire to where it is today. To be clear, I use PowerPoint a lot, just in the right way—to demonstrate points, not sentences!

As a result of the wonderful technological tools that we now have available, when used incorrectly you have the pandemic of PPT. That is, presenters relying on technology to make their jobs easier instead of going through the work of giving the audiences what they want. Afterall, isn’t it just “easier” and less stressful to just put together a beautiful PowerPoint presentation in your own time and have the presentation do the work of communicating the message for you? You would save time by not preparing your words, not learning the flow of your presentation, and not practicing your “chalk and talk” diagrams, right? Well, although easier, the PPT method is wrong. This tendency of presenters choosing his/her own comfort over the audience’s is what has made powerful communicators a rare commodity nowadays.

A Few Tips
To end this column I have some very quick tips, which at this point are likely obvious after reading the last 1,200 words. These tips you might find useful whether you are applying them to your newfound Zoom presentations or your “in person” presentations that you will someday be back to conducting.

1. If it is what the audience wants, you must choose their needs over yours! Audiences do not want a gazillion PowerPoint slides, although having the PowerPoint deck do one’s job is “easier” for presenters. In a people business, people desire to connect with people, not a slideshow. Because of this desire, there is no way that even the most powerful PowerPoint deck could ever offset shortcomings in the presenter’s word and concept delivery. Going to the gym is painful for me, but I do it anyway! Think of this the same way.
2. Get good with “Chalk and Talk.” As I tell the financial professionals that I have coached over the years, if you can speak to an audience for a couple of hours and keep them engaged while explaining complicated concepts (which our industry is full of) with just a whiteboard, you have hit the major leagues. I am not suggesting that you not use PowerPoint slides, I am just suggesting that I believe for many presentation settings (like Zoom Meetings), a whiteboard is more powerful if done correctly!
3. If using PowerPoints, less is better! Although I love my whiteboard, I do use PowerPoints often. Paradoxically, you are competing for the audience’s attention when you use PowerPoint slides. Therefore, I believe if you are going to use PowerPoint slides there should be no more than one slide for every two minutes of speaking you do. Thus, if I am going to speak for an hour, you will rarely see me have more than 30 slides. I will likely have no more than 10 slides. And, those slides have very few words and are more “pictorial” in nature to add to my presentation versus competing with my presentation.
4. Unshackle yourself from technology! A side effect of the PPT Pandemic is that you are dependent on technology because that has always made your job “easier.” What would happen if you were at a major conference with 1,000 prospects and somebody came up to you and said “Hey, one of our speakers with a two-hour slot just got sick and cannot present. The presentation is in 30 minutes and we have no time to upload PowerPoint slides. Can you fill in?” What would you say? Do you have the stories, explanations, etc. to accept the offer or have you been a victim of the pandemic for too long?
5. Half Caff and Voice Inflection. In one of my prior companies I went through PR training where they trained me on navigating interviews with the media. One great thing I learned was the notion of “half caff.” That is, our body language and voice inflection get “dulled” by the camera as well as being in the limelight. So, it is suggested that you offset that by slightly “caffeinating” or exaggerating your voice inflection and body language. Clearly, if you look “dull” because of the camera’s impact, you will be tuned out by the audience.

“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place”
—George Bernard Shaw

This is a repeat of a column I wrote for the December 2018 issue. In today’s environment, where financial professionals are having to adopt new methods, I feel this is a timely repeat. One constant in our business should always be to tell your story!

I was never going to write on this topic until today when I had a conversation with Joe Jordan. Some of you may know Joe, who has written the bestselling book “Living a Life of Significance.” Joe is also a globally sought after speaker on the value of what we do in the insurance business. Joe is a good friend of mine. In his speeches, and his book, he speaks of a personal experience reminiscent of the one that I had been hesitant to write about.

In my conversation with Joe I told him what I was thinking of writing about and my hesitation because of its personal nature. Here was Joe’s response:

“Charlie, this is the problem with our industry! Our industry relishes the analytics, product specs, mortality tables, tax law data and all of that other technical BS. We need to change. I know you are probably thinking you shouldn’t write about it because of a couple different reasons: First, that it’s not professional to write about one’s personal life; and second, that you fear people may think you are looking for sympathy. Well it is these personal stories that we need to tell more of in this business. This is where we are missing the boat!”

So, here we go…
I was born in Atlantic, Iowa (Southwest Iowa), a town of about 7,000 people. I grew up in a blue collar family and have a brother that is two years younger than me.

Growing up we had two opposing forces in our household, my mom and my dad. My mom was the one that made sure we got decent grades in school, had nice clothes, brushed our teeth in the morning and night, and stayed out of trouble. My dad, on the other hand, didn’t care about our grades or what clothes we wore, didn’t care if we brushed our teeth, and rarely disciplined us. My mom and dad were a good mixture for us kids because my mom kept us in line and my dad was my brother’s and my best friend growing up. My dad took us hunting and fishing since we were toddlers, taught us to ride motorcycles, bought us video games, and all of the other things that boys like to do. My mom made us take care of ourselves and our dad taught us how to have fun. My mom jokes to this day that we always thought she was the “mean one,” which is true. This dynamic made for a great childhood for us kids but not a great marriage between those two. Hence their eventual divorce.

My mom and dad parted ways when I was 12 and my brother was 10. Even though my mom won the custody battle, and rightfully so, my dad would religiously take us every other weekend. He looked forward to it as much as we did.

The fact that my dad loved us kids so much and doted on us was surprising to those who knew my dad. The reason being, my dad was an intimidating personality and an intimidating figure. For those on the outside they may have viewed my dad as not caring about anybody.

My dad was a high school dropout who founded his own underground plumbing and concrete company. He smoked three packs a day, cursed like crazy, and he loved his alcoholic beverages. If you know anybody who has been digging ditches and pouring concrete all of their lives, you have an idea of my dad. In his younger years he was 6’4” with giant shoulders and forearms. His hands were like concrete. Yes, we got spanked by those hands when we were young! And we deserved it. He was a tough, tough guy who worked every day of his life, 12 hours a day. He earned hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, which was a massive amount of money in Southwest Iowa. However, he spent his money just as fast as he earned it, which did not sit well with my mom who was a stay at home mom trying to raise a family. His friends called him “Crazy Charlie.” My brother and I loved “Crazy Charlie” and he loved us.

I worked for my dad through high school and college. I am thankful for this as it gave me my work ethic and made me pretty handy around the house if I do say so myself. One day on a jobsite when I was 17 I was using a concrete saw to cut excess concrete off the end of the parking lot we had just poured. Of course because I was 17 and needed a nice tan, I was wearing shorts. Not wise when you are doing this type of work! Well the saw slipped and in an instant sliced my shin wide open to the bone. My dad was not on the jobsite so I drove myself to the hospital. Once at the hospital emergency room I called my dad to ask him for our insurance information. He said, “I will pay cash.” The triage lady seemed skeptical of this until I told her that my dad, Charlie Gipple, was coming to pay. In Atlantic, Iowa, everybody knew my dad and his unique ways.

My dad went to the hospital and paid cash that day after they stitched me up. This was probably the first time in forty years he set foot in a doctor’s office or hospital outside of the birth of his sons.

Obviously, that day I learned that my dad did not even carry insurance for him, for my brother and I, or for his business’s liability! I thought to myself that day that, even though my mom currently had my brother and I covered under the plan that she bought when they divorced, what about when we were younger and my mom wasn’t working? Were we not covered? Did we pay cash when I would crash my dirt bike on at least a semi-annual basis? What if something really bad happened?

Needless to say, insurance and investments were never concepts my dad concerned himself with, even though working with heavy machinery was extremely risky.

My dad ensured that I and my brother went to college so we did not “turn out like him” as he would say. Between a basketball scholarship, loans, and him paying cash, I did exactly what he didn’t do—I went to college and got a Finance degree.

Within a relatively short period of time after I graduated I was a regional vice president for an annuity company. My career was starting to look good and I was working very hard and spending a lot of time travelling the country. Although I talked to both of my parents on the phone frequently, I never got to see them much outside of holidays.

The Thanksgiving of 2005 I will never forget. My wife and I met my dad at his favorite restaurant to celebrate Thanksgiving. When I saw him get out of his car in the parking lot my stomach dropped. I barely recognized him. I couldn’t fathom the amount of weight he had lost since I had seen him last—only a few months prior. Believing he was sick, I actually mustered up the courage to ask him what was happening and if I could help. He claimed that the reason for his weight loss was because the doctor told him he was borderline diabetic and the doctor put him on a diet. As you can imagine, I was skeptical of his reasons because I was certain he hadn’t seen a doctor since he was young. Furthermore, the weight loss was simply too significant.

Was he lying because he didn’t want us to worry? Was he lying because he would never, ever, ask for help? Well, the detail he included in his description of his “doctor visit” was very convincing to me and, besides, what could I do? He was not one that would accept any help from anybody. It was a somber dinner for me.

Six months later, late May of 2006, I stepped off an airplane in Salt Lake City, Utah, to visit a couple of marketing organization customers. I looked at my cell phone/flip phone and saw that I had a message from my brother to call him back. When I returned his call, my brother informed me that my uncle had to break into my dad’s house because my dad had not been feeling good and had been behind locked doors for several days. My dad had passed away at the age of 62 in his bed.

After flying back to Iowa I learned more. I learned that the cause of death was colon cancer and that the doctor had not seen him in decades. It was indeed a lie! I also learned that my dad was very sick that week. So sick that he wanted everybody to leave him alone and he locked everybody out of his house that came to visit. He was dying. My dad knew he was dying and he did not call me or my brother.

Why did he not call us? Because I believe he knew we would try to help him, whether physically or financially. And for my dad, asking for help was a “weakness” and a burden to those helping him. He believed he was supposed to be the one helping us! He was a smart person and I know how he thought. I believe he also thought that my brother and I would do whatever it took to help him, but without any insurance whatsoever how could anybody possibly help him with the situation he was in? How could anybody afford that?

I believe that my dad, over that few days, knew exactly the monumental burden that he would be to his “caregivers” if he went to the hospital or called one of us. I believe he had a choice to make between being another “caregiver burden” statistic or to let nature take its course. Unfortunately, he chose the latter. As Joe Jordan speaks about with his mother, I believe my dad willed himself to passing because of the burden, mostly financial burden, which he would have cast upon us.

Would it have ended differently if my dad had his financial house in order and, instead of lying to me, he actually went to the doctor? Why didn’t any financial professional speak with my dad about what we had to offer?

My dad always said “If I knew I was going to live this long then I would have taken better care of myself.” Although he joked about this many times, I think there was a good amount of seriousness in that statement. For being a high school dropout he was actually one of the smartest people I have known. One could reason with him after getting past the rough edges. Why didn’t this happen?

What about if he died, say, 10-years earlier? I likely would have never gone to college and my brother certainly would not have. Did anybody ever propose life insurance to him to ensure that college would happen upon his death? (Granted, he was likely uninsurable!)

What if he died 20-years earlier when I was six, my brother was four, and my mom had no income? What if he got hurt? What if us kids got hurt?

Of course my questions above are rhetorical because I know that my dad had never been approached—not even by me, his son. Why not? Well I am sure you know the type that my dad was. The tough macho type that never considered that someday they will not be 10 feet tall and bulletproof. They believe that thinking about this and certainly discussing this goes against their manly protector instincts. For my dad you would be “questioning his manhood” to suggest that someday he may need help. However, these conversations have to happen! This is the courage part of our business. One conversation with one person like my dad that leads to the family getting protection could literally save lives.

It is not hyperbole to say that the profession we are in effects families in a life or death fashion many times. That is a pretty special impact that we have on lives. As you may know, I love the analytics and the details as much as anybody. However, the most important thing we can do is to develop the courage to have those tough conversations that not only positively impact the “Crazy Charlie” you are speaking to, but also the family for generations. And if you tick off the person for trying to help them and their family then so be it! It has to happen.

Many other families in similar situations will not dodge the destitute bullet that my family did over the years. It all worked out. My dad lived the life he wanted to live, has sons that are healthy and successful, and he ended up never having to ask anybody for help. I just wish my dad could have met his two grandsons, Seth Charles Gipple (11) and Matthew Charles Gipple (8) and spoiled them like he did us.

A little over a year and a half ago I decided to leave corporate America to start a full-service independent marketing organization (IMO), CG Financial Group, LLC. This was a great process for me, not only because it allowed me to create a business that is already successful, but also because it allowed me to go through the process that I am now educating financial professionals on. That process is creating a “21st Century Agency.” I think you would agree that a 21st Century Agency is one that leverages consumer behaviors, social media, video, websites, search engines, etc.

Given that there are many parallels between what I have done (and am doing) and what a large chunk of the Broker World readership has done and/or is doing, I thought I would touch on the high-level process that I went through and what I coach insurance agencies on. Whether one is brand new to our industry or a veteran looking to optimize his/her practice, the below may be useful from a practice management and marketing standpoint.
Following is a very high-level version of our “Six-Step Roadmap” that we use to help new agents, as well as seasoned veterans, build out their business in an age where brands matter, expertise matters, and a web presence matters.

1.Create a name for your company. As you create your name, think about what it will be that will attract people to your company. For instance, when I started my company, I surveyed a lot of friends in the industry about what they think would attract people to my company. Many of them said, “You and your expertise and your ability to explain complicated topics in a simple manner.” So, I took their word for it and created the name “CG Financial Group, LLC.” CG of course being my initials. I also included the motto of “Simplifying Financial Security.”

Once you think of a name for your company or a “Doing Business As” (DBA), make sure you check the secretary of state’s website in your state to make sure it is not taken.

Most important of all of this, create a name that speaks to the value you will bring in the eyes of your prospects!

2. LLC and/or EIN. Whether or not to file for an LLC, S-Corp, etc., or get an employer identification number, is beyond the scope of this article, but if you go this route speak with an attorney or look online for companies like “Legal Zoom.” If you go the website route, make sure you are very much on top of all the business rules so you do it correctly!

3. Create a logo. I have studied human behavior, the brain, and behavioral finance a lot and I believe that every business should have a logo. They say that when you communicate with people, that 55 percent is body language, 38 percent is the tone of voice, and only seven percent is the actual words. In other words, the 55 percent that is body language tells me that people are visual! I know, it’s not breaking news that people are visual. A logo appeals to consumers’ visual tendencies and works like a tattoo in the brain. That “tattoo” can be a positive one if their experience with your company was good, or a negative one if the experience was bad.

My tips on the logo are: a) There are great logo apps online, just google “creating a logo” and you will see many; b) Make sure the logo is unique; c) Make sure it speaks to what you do; and, d) I do not believe a logo has to be fully descriptive. A logo can also generate questions like, “What does your logo mean?” That gives you an opportunity to explain what you do!

4. Create a Facebook Business page. This allows folks to “follow” my page and get my business’ content that appears in their feed whenever I post it to my Facebook page. I call it “passive aggressive marketing.”

Example: Let’s say that I just built out my Facebook Business page with a bunch of great articles and visuals. Maybe I included some facts about life insurance, annuity rates, the life insurance need, as well as a life quote engine, etc.

Well, just starting a “page” does not get followers. This is when I go to my “Personal” Facebook page and share with my 1,000 “Friends” that I have a Facebook Business page and that they should “Like” my business page in order to see ongoing updates and subject matter expertise. Once they “Like” my page, again, they will now see my ongoing material in their feeds. That is what I call “Passive Aggressive Marketing” and eventually, if your material is good enough, you will have family and friends inquire about various topics you have posted to your Facebook Business page. This cost you $0!

Furthermore, with Facebook Business I have the ability to target consumers in certain areas that have certain interests as well as certain “life events.” This costs money but can be very cost effective if done correctly.

Note: Instagram and LinkedIn are also great social media outlets one should utilize!

5. Website. I believe that having a website today is equivalent to what having basic prospecting conversations was 20 years ago. Conversations take place online in the 21st Century, whether you are technically “conversing” or not. Your website allows you to have “conversations” with prospects as you sleep. Work with an IMO that will provide you with material for a powerful website. Alternatively, you could also consider hiring a professional website designer such as Hooked Marketing to help you create your website.

Furthermore, now that you have set up your Facebook Business page, you are able to direct those Facebook followers to your website. But again, your website has to have compelling information and subject matter expertise so you are not wasting the prospects’ time. Generating this material is where you can leverage your IMO. In the end, the goal is to have your social media pages feeding your website and vice versa. The goal is to create a never-ending lead producing cycle. Also, if you are looking for service providers in web design melbourne or nearby places, you could consider taking the help of companies like Cultivate Digital.

A few key components a website should have:

• Messaging about why you are different. Why should they choose you versus your competition?
• Subject Matter Expertise! I believe that because of the internet, today’s consumer is better informed than an agent was in 1990. Therefore, you better be educating them on something they cannot get by researching your competitor’s website. Leverage your IMO for this material.
• Your site should have more of a discussion about the issues and potential solutions versus “products.”
• Your site should have a Blog! Blogs are posts/updates/commentary that are posted to your website and automatically emailed to those that have subscribed. A blog is especially important because it allows you to speak in a more casual tone than the verbiage on the main page of your website. This allows the prospects to better connect with you, the human being behind the business. It also allows you to show them that you know your stuff and are much more than somebody wanting to sell them something. If your material is good enough, the people visiting your site and reading your blog will share with others and you will have many “subscribers” that will now get your blog posts once you hit “publish.”
  
  Most importantly, blogs help with “Search Engine Optimization” that I discuss in a moment. For instance, if you write a blog about long term care solutions and that blog mentions “long term care” six times, that will help your website appear closer to the top when a prospect in your area googles “Long Term Care Insurance.”

6. Search Engine Optimization: When I started CG Financial Group, I followed these six steps. Of course, that means I almost immediately created CGFinancialGroupLLC.com, the website. I also “optimized” it for search engines.

One of the items at the time that I put on my website was a reference to a sales tool that I had that independent agents could utilize as they sold indexed annuities and indexed life insurance. The sales tool was provided by a third party. This third party and I had an agreement that I could market this tool to the CG Financial Group agents.

So, fast-forwarding to about six months, all of a sudden, I started getting phone calls from agents that I had never spoken to in my life. These agents were asking me how to pay for their subscription for the tool, how to make adjustments on the account, some of them how to cancel their accounts, etc. They believed that I was the entity that was actually behind this particular sales tool! I was merely an IMO that distributed their product.

Well, after about the fifth call I started to ask questions about how they got my information and why they believed that I was the same entity. What was their response? They all said that when they “googled” the name of the sales tool, my website was at the very top and therefore they assumed that I was the same company as the sales tool provider. If that is not a testament to the importance of “search engine optimization” or “SEO services” I don’t know what is!

Clearly, there are many more steps to creating an agency for the 21st Century than these, but one needs to walk before he can run and I believe the above are table stakes in order to have a “21st Century Agency.”

This message is prompted by hearing about yet another agent last week (not associated with CG Financial Group) that got herself in trouble by selling cash value life insurance as an “investment” without regard to the actual death benefit need.

As you may or may not know, prior to starting CG Financial Group, I spent 20 years on the carrier side of things where I have been privy to many complaints about this topic. Therefore, I feel that I have a unique perspective which I am obligated to share with you, the financial professional reading this column. Plus, these thoughts are inherently unique because I am not an attorney but am agreeing with the caution that the home office attorneys often express on this topic. Afterall, distribution folks and attorneys do not always agree!

Sales folks often view attorneys as being afraid of their own shadows and attorneys often view sales folks as being motivated to cram a square peg into a round hole to make a commission. Obviously, I am usually one of those “sales folks.” But not with this topic.

Selling life insurance as an “investment” without ever discussing the death benefit need and costs is a great concern that attorneys in carrier home offices have around cash value life insurance sales.

Now, I have spent my career educating financial professionals and consumers on the value of various cash value life insurance policies. I will continue to do this, and CG Financial Group will continue to support agents with our number one product sold—cash value life insurance! Why? Because it’s a great product for the right clients.

However, it is my obligation to make sure the fine financial professionals reading this column can create and/or maintain flourishing and “lawsuit free” businesses. I will always tell the truth, even if the truth leads to fewer sales. Eventually integrity wins the day.

Here are my thoughts:
When selling life insurance, there must be a life insurance need!

I know that when you look at some of the benefits of IUL, whole life, VUL, etc., that one may be able to make a case for why they are “suitable” even without the death benefit. After all, you have tax advantaged growth, great interest rates on loans, tax-free loans, and the “possibility” of decent growth rates. One may think that those traits alone would justify a sale to a client that is merely looking for an “investment.” Not so.

The bottom line is that the client is paying COI charges that are paying for a death benefit. I know that I/you could also make the case that some of those COI expenses are just “the cost of doing business” in a product that has benefits that other “investments” don’t have, but that does not fly in arbitration/lawsuits.

Hypothetical lawsuit:
Let’s say you or I discussed IUL or whole life with a client that did not “need” the death benefit but loved all the other accumulation and income traits previously mentioned. Thus, you/I sold the product as solely an “investment” to this client. You/I sold this life insurance without assessing the client’s need for life insurance and therefore you never really discussed the death benefit.

My vision of how the court process would go:

Opposing Attorney: “Mr. agent, tell me in a yes or no answer. Is it true that there are charges in insurance policies that are solely for the purpose of creating a death benefit for the consumers?”
You/Me: “Yes”

Opposing Attorney: “What are those charges called?”
You/Me: “Cost of Insurance Charges.”

Opposing Attorney: “Now also tell me—yes or no—is it also true that my client paid X thousand dollars in these COI charges over 10 years to have that death benefit?”
You/Me: “I don’t recall the exact amount of COI Charges.”

Opposing Attorney: “Well I have the exact number here and it is X thousand dollars over 10 years. Does that sound about right to you?”
You/Me: “Yes, it does.”

Opposing Attorney: “Is it also true that you and my client never even discussed the death benefit component that cost my client X thousand dollars, and as a matter of fact my client had never even expressed a desire or a need to purchase additional life insurance coverage?”
You/Me: “Correct.”

Opposing Attorney: “So, to summarize, my client has paid X thousand dollars in expenses—that was not disclosed to him—for a benefit that my client did not even need? Does that sound correct?”
You/Me: “umm, uhm…”

Opposing Attorney: “I rest my case.”

In the above scenario, even if you had some fantasy life insurance product that guaranteed the client 50 percent per year tax free, the conversation would go the same way! So the point is, even if you wholeheartedly believe you are doing the right thing, understand the need for the “death benefit.”

Lastly, lawsuits are not the only risks to one’s business that may cause significant loss. Large chargebacks (without the lawsuit) are also a risk. And those chargebacks can happen—even after the chargeback period—if it is deemed by the carrier that you sold an “unsuitable product” based on that client’s needs.

Last Christmas my wife and I agreed to not get each other anything. Well, I found a very nice watch that she wanted at a very good price. I recalled our agreement, but I also knew I was doing the right thing by taking advantage of the sale. There was no way she would get mad at me because I was doing a smart and well-intentioned thing. Plus, I knew it would save her money in the long run. Well, on Christmas day I gave it to her. I got in trouble even though my intentions were pure.

Recap: In last month’s column I discussed the two opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to funding a life insurance policy, specifically indexed universal life insurance. Those opposite ends are, the death benefit focused side and the cash accumulation side. I also discussed how “overfunding/max funding” works from a mechanical standpoint in reducing COI charges. To summarize in an over simplistic way, we want the cash value and death benefit lines as close to together as possible if we are going for maximum accumulation! If you would like a copy of last month’s column, email me and I will send it to you.

I ended last month’s column with a “teaser” on a question that tripped up my agent in his sales presentation to his client Brian. By the way, I am not picking on this agent in particular because this is a common issue I address with many agents as I help with the more “advanced” case designs. What was the question that the client had that created confusion for my agent? Here is the question from his client that tripped up my agent which seems very basic on the surface: “If I want a higher death benefit than the ‘minimum death benefit’ on this product, can I go with a higher death benefit?”

Of course, the simple answer is, yes! But is that the best answer? Although the “minimum non-MEC death benefit” for our healthy 45-year old is $231,000 when he is funding it at $10,000 annually, the agent can illustrate a higher death benefit than that “minimum”—up to a certain level of course. However, if you really understand the mechanics of cash value life insurance, you know there should be much more analysis involved than just jacking up the death benefit in the IUL illustration and calling it good.

Generalization or Specialization?
The client, Brian, was wondering if he can get an additional $100k of death benefit on top of the $231k within the same product. He wanted to see if he could get this additional coverage for 20 years. Again, the answer is yes, he can do this, but is that the right way to go? Afterall, what started out as a case focused largely on accumulation has now morphed into an accumulation and death benefit focused policy. What is the intent of the product—accumulation or death benefit? Can you buy a golf club that makes a good putter and a driver at the same time? Or, do you need to separate out products? When looking at cash value life insurance, should products satisfy general objectives or are the products more specialized? Let’s discuss my view on this.

Following are two diagrams: The purpose of these simple diagrams is to demonstrate the relationship between the $10k premium going in, the two different death benefits over time and also the “Net Amount at Risk.” Again, in both diagrams we chose the “Increasing Death Benefit” in the early years for reasons I explained in last month’s column.

In Diagram A is a graphic of our first 20 years or so in the policy without the additional $100,000 in death benefit included. Per the illustration, based on $10,000 per year in premiums, the minimum “non-MEC death benefit” is $231,000. As we have already discussed last month, the difference between the two lines is the “Net Amount at Risk” that determines the COI charges.

Now, because IUL is a “flexible premium” product, we can choose to have the face amount at $331k instead of the $221k that was the minimum death benefit. Afterall, our client needs that additional $100,000 of coverage for 20 years. Without digging into the numbers year by year, and instead keeping this conceptual, let’s overlay the “new” scenario of Brian funding at the same $10k per year but now moving this IUL’s death benefit up to $331,000. See Diagram B.

As you can see in Diagram B, the old scenario is represented by the dashed lines. I also included the new $331k face amount (in blue) and also the new projected cash accumulation value (in black). Notice how the cash accumulation is not as steep as the previous dashed accumulation (in red). That is because of the additional expense drag that is incorporated into Diagram B which is composed of:

• Higher cost of insurance charges which is based on the higher “Net Amount at Risk”
• Higher per thousand charges which is based on the higher face amount

If you have read any of my past IUL analysis, you would recognize the two expenses above as being two of “The Big Three” of expenses that I discuss frequently. The third being Premium Loads, which is a function of the premium going into the policy. Note: I have since changed it to “The Big Four” now that many companies have asset-based charges.

In the assumptions in Diagram C I used a very reasonable five percent illustrated rate, instead of the 6.9 percent that I could have used as the max. The only thing that illustrating a higher rate would do is to prove my point even further.

As you can see, by having a death benefit of $100k beyond the “Minimum Non-MEC” that the IRS would allow, you are watering down the cash value performance of the policy because of the higher expenses. By adding the $100k death benefit, one is watering down the Year 20 Cash Value by $10,581 and the annual loans by almost $1,000. Most importantly, how much in additional charges would Brian have in the $331k policy versus the $221k policy? $5,934 over the 20 years–or an average of $297 per year.

So, What Is My Suggestion?
Am I suggesting we leave Brian without the $100,000 additional death benefit? Of course not. To me it is a question of, “What would be the cost of $100,000 of coverage for 20 years from a source outside of this IUL policy?” Then we would compare that cost to the $5,934 that it would cost if we used the IUL for that additional $100k coverage.

Utilizing the same health class as the above IUL, the best 20-year term price for Brian on $100,000 in coverage would only be $175 per year, cheaper than the $297 per year embedded in the IUL pricing. Furthermore, the 20-year term premium/expenses/charges are 100 percent guaranteed whereas the IUL can adjust. Now, needs can change, so I would suggest a term policy with great conversion privileges, as this particular term has.

What I am suggesting is that with cash value policies in general—not just IUL—that many times these policies are “specialists” in either cash accumulation or death benefit. It is rare if not nonexistent where there is a product at the top of the industry for death benefit leverage and also cash value potential.

What I ultimately suggested to my agent was to offer both products—the max funded $231k face IUL and also the term policy. He sold them both!

Note: I also looked at the Term Blending Rider on the IUL which was fairly expensive. Term blending riders are great for when the client wants to fund an IUL but has varying premiums that he/she will put in over time. Term blending is a great “place holder” for death benefit that can be converted to the permanent base coverage later on. Inquire if you are interested in learning more about term blending.

In Summation
Now, by Brian paying the premium of $10,000 per year into the IUL and $175 per year into the term, he is paying $10,175 in total premiums. I could show you the math of including all of that into the IUL, but the end conclusion will not change by adding $175 per year to the premium.

Much of what I wrote here is fairly brief because I wanted to keep this simple, accurate and conceptual. For instance, I could have discussed “term blending riders” that many IULs offer, but that would not have changed the conclusion. Furthermore, I did not incorporate time value of money to discount back the COI charges into today’s dollars, etc. I have done those mental gymnastics outside of this paper and I have always come to the same conclusion–that it is always best to try to “max fund” accumulation IUL whenever you use it, and buy the death benefit leverage from a death benefit focused product separately. In other words, my belief is, specialization is important!

It is best to use a Ferrari for racing and an RV for camping instead of trying to use one of those vehicles for both activities.

As my company trains scores of financial professionals every month on permanent life insurance, we always observe common questions and misperceptions that warrant a column or two. Lately I have observed some common questions around how to illustrate IUL, how to optimize the death benefits, and how to optimize the product offering based on the clients’ goals–whether the goals are death benefit focused or cash value focused. Let’s discuss.

Because indexed universal life insurance provides premium flexibility as well as death benefit flexibility, there are many objectives a consumer can have that drives the purchase of an indexed universal life insurance policy. However, the two broad categories are:

1. Death Benefit Objective: Small Premiums/Big Death Benefit
The first objective is to pay as little in premium as possible in order to get a desired death benefit, usually the larger the better. Some IUL policies have a death benefit that is guaranteed for a certain number of years assuming the consumer pays the “minimum no-lapse” premiums. There are even some IUL policies out there that have lifetime no-lapse guarantees! Lastly, some policies have essentially no guarantees that run only as long as the cash value can support the internal charges. Of course, just like anything else, the more guarantees, the higher the expenses (generally).

For just the death benefit need there can be lower cost insurance options than IUL, such as term life insurance or guaranteed universal life–”Perm Term” as I call it. However, with indexed universal life insurance consumers may choose to pay higher premiums because it provides the death benefit protection they desire but also the ability to accumulate cash value that can be accessed for various reasons such as: Emergencies, education expenses, retirement funds, etc.

2. Cash Value Objective: Large Premiums/Minimum Death Benefit
If the death benefit products that I discussed previously are the golfer’s equivalent of the “putter,” then this category is the “driver.” This is usually the opposite—you cram in as much premium as possible for as little of a death benefit as possible.

This objective is usually referred to as “max-funding” or “overfunding.” I prefer the term max-funding because over-funding just sounds like you are doing something incorrect.

Anyway, a large majority of industrywide IUL sales are bought with this objective in mind. For consumers that have this objective, they have a life insurance need but also have a very strong focus on cash value growth and minimizing the cost of insurance charges. The goal is usually to generate enough cash value in the policy so that they can take loans against the policy—that are generally tax free.

Why Overfund a Life Insurance Policy?
The notion of putting more premium into a life insurance policy than is necessary seems very counterintuitive to consumers. Here is a quick story on this topic.

I was recently on a call with one of my agents (and friends) in California helping him as he discussed IUL with one of his clients. This was the second meeting with this client who was already well versed on the topic of IUL and was likely going to move forward with it outside of a couple of final clarifying questions. This was a high net worth 45-year-old male client that was maxing out his 401k plan, had done very well with other investments and now was looking for an “alternative asset” that was more on the conservative side. He also wanted an asset that he can turn into a stream of retirement income in 20 years. He had an additional $10,000 per year that he wanted to put to work.

This was the perfect client for IUL as he understood the power of potentially tax-free loans, living benefits and, most important, he also understood that his current life insurance coverage was on the “lean” side.

The call was going quite well, as the agent did a great job answering all the questions the client had except for one question where he got tripped up. What was that question? We will get there in a bit. But first, here is the question that I thought the agent did a great job with. The question from the client was, “Why minimize the death benefit? If I have a choice between having more death benefit coverage or less death benefit coverage for the same premium, why would I go with the less?”

This is a great question and not the first time I have heard this question from a client or an agent. Thus, the reason for this article! It is a reasonable question because if IUL is a “flexible premium product” and if the client could possibly pay the same premium for a little higher death benefit, why wouldn’t he? Can he have his cake and eat it too?

The agent responded to that question with an answer that I thought was very well articulated. He said, “By minimizing the death benefit relative to the cash value we are able to keep the internal charges in the policy down, which allows for the product to accumulate more cash at a faster rate.”

This answer is very accurate because, as you know, the cost of insurance charges are assessed on the net amount at risk. To discuss this topic briefly with you, I thought I would include the following diagrams that I had previously trained this agent (and many others) to use.

In short, if you can keep the red cash value line and the green death benefit line as close to each other as possible, then, all else being equal, the COI charges will be minimized. That is because the COI factors are based on the net amount at risk. The IRS regulates how low the death benefit can go relative to the premium and cash value with Guideline Premium rules and Seven-Pay rules.

Pay close attention to where I have the death benefits starting for each respective death benefit option. Note that in most cases the “Option 2 (Increasing) Death Benefit” will allow for the death benefit to start out much lower than the “Option 1 (Level) Death Benefit.” Furthermore, if you look at the diagrams, the Option 2 Death Benefit has the smallest gap in the beginning years and the Option 1 has the smallest gap in the later years.

So, if one is better in the early years and the other is better in the later years, which option do we typically go with? Both! That is exactly why you see many IUL illustrations starting out at Option 2 but then switching to Option 1 after the premiums stop going in. You get to use the optimal option for both sides of the time spectrum.

The Tougher Question
Now, what about the question I mentioned that my agent (and friend) tripped on a little bit? It was this question: “If I want a higher death benefit than the ‘minimum death benefit’ on this product, should we do the higher death benefit?”

In essence, the client wanted more death benefit than the $231k that was the “minimum death benefit” on this product but yet he also liked the accumulation potential to be as high as possible on the IUL. Can he have a golf club that can be a good putter and also a good driver? What route should he go? What did the agent recommend? To be continued…

First off, my goal is to make this so non-political that, by the end of this column, you will not know whether I am a Democrat or a Republican. So if you read the title of this article expecting to witness a train wreck below you can rest easy. I hope. And yes, I am fully cognizant that bringing up politics is almost as dangerous as telling my friend, Steve Howard, that I am not a Chiefs fan! Actually, I do like the Chiefs.

The purpose of this article is to merely take learnings from a group of folks (politicians) who deal with numbers of people that dwarf the numbers of people we work with and apply those learnings to your business. In other words, with political elections you have the “Law of Large Numbers” which makes for a very interesting litmus test on how to interact with the public, i.e. our prospective clients.

The Brain
There are two different ways that our brain processes information—one way is the analytical or conscious way, and the other is the emotional or subconscious way.

I have read several books on how humans make decisions and they all explain these two different thinking types in a different way. The book Storyselling for Financial Advisors explains the brain functionality as left brain versus right brain. Basically, if you were to take a map of the United States and look at it, on the left you would have California and on the right, you would have New York and Washington DC. Now, turn the map away from you as if you are showing somebody this map. You now have New York and Washington DC on the left and California on the right. Think of these two locations: New York and DC are analytics, numbers, Wall Street, Alpha, Beta, legislation, analytics, objective, etc. This part of the country takes deep thinking! Conversely, on the “Right Side” of your forward-facing map you have Beverly Hills, Hollywood, etc. These places are fun, exciting, stories, movies, random, intuitive, etc. This is how our brain works. Left brain analytical processing versus right brain emotional processing.

Now, there are other books that explain our thinking a little differently and more neurologically in depth. For example, the book Your Money and Your Brain by Jason Zweig explains the brain as being less about left and right and more about up and down. In other words, the analytical part of the brain is the Cerebral Cortex on the top front part of your brain. And the emotional part of your brain is in the core, called the Basal Ganglia. This definition of how we think I believe is probably more precise because he backs it with MRI research where the patients are given emotional and analytical tests while their brain activity is monitored by MRI data. Regardless, the brain is broken down into two areas—analytical and emotional. So regardless of which definition is right (left, right, up, down) one thing that is undisputed is we think in two different ways, analytical and emotional.

Emotional Wins Every Time!
As I have been witnessing the presidential debates not just this year but also four years ago, I have observed a very interesting correlation, or lack thereof, that I thought I would write about.

First off, I believe that you cannot be a complete idiot and make it to be a top candidate for the leader of the free world, whether on the Democratic side or Republican side. I think it is likely that almost everybody that makes it to the debate stage probably has an IQ beyond the average American. Furthermore, you will often see a candidate or two that are among the smartest minds in the country, maybe even the world. As a matter of fact, on the Democratic side, at the beginning of the election season 9 of the 14 candidates attended an Ivy League school, eight have law degrees, and two are Rhodes scholars. On the Republican side, going back to the 2016 campaign, you had a doctor that was the first ever to separate conjoined twins—Ben Carson. I don’t know about you, but to me that seems like an intimidating task!

Here is the correlation, or lack thereof: How far did those analytical left-brain skills get them? I have not seen any correlation in how book smart one is relative to the other candidates and their likelihood of winning.

All the democrats are losing to Bernie Sanders (at the time of this writing). And going back to the 2016 Republican debate, we all know that all the republicans lost to Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders has very little formal education relative to some of the others. The same would apply to Donald Trump.

My point is, the direct correlation in this litmus test is those that become successful are those that also communicate in an “emotional/right brained” fashion. And—needless to say—Trump and Sanders trigger various emotions with various people! The politicians that win are able to trigger the emotional right side of the brain better than any of the others.

These people that ultimately win can tell stories that compel people to act. Logic alone many times does not compel people to act. Think of some of the most memorable speeches coming from any presidential figure. Those speeches were emotionally charged, and many times have very little “analytical” significance. Now, I am not suggesting that academics are not important. Afterall, I would like to think that I study this business as much as anybody and believe in designations, etc. What I am suggesting is that it can be a moot point if you cannot get people to act. How we get people to act is by telling stories and opening that “inner eye” of emotions. Whether you love XYZ politician or hate him/her, make note of how they get people to act! Most of the time, they get votes because that politician has hit a hot button.

Have Conviction in Your Recommendation
Unrelated to any of the candidates today, I will pose this question that I have recently been reminded of in my own dealings with a client. The question is: If a politician stood up on stage and gave their ideas without 100 percent conviction, would you get behind that person? If that politician said, “I think my tax plan could possibly create a good amount of wealth for the American people but the actual amount I am not sure of,” would anybody get behind that? No!

On the political stage those that have the best recommendation as well as the strongest conviction around how that recommendation will work will be the more successful. People can say what they want about Trump or Sanders, but lacking in conviction is not what anybody would explain them as.

Like in politics, the more confident we as professionals are in making recommendations, the more the client will buy.

Now it is time to be a little self-deprecating and tell you about a recent experience I had. After 22 years in the business and understanding the common sense I just laid out in the previous paragraphs, I basically did the opposite of what I just explained. Thus, what prompted me to write this article.

I was meeting with a nice lady that was 83 years old. I liked her and she liked me, and she trusted me at this point. This was our second meeting and I was showing her two different options for her $200,000 that she had sitting in a low yielding CD. She was very small and very petite but also very healthy. However, she was concerned that her $200,000 was not earning anything in interest. She also understood the long term care risk and was somewhat concerned about it. All her siblings had gone into a nursing home and it was almost a certainty that she would end up there. She had longevity in her family as well as “morbidity” in her family.

To address her concerns I formulated two different options for her. The first option was that she could continue to grow her assets like she had been doing, except in a guaranteed annuity that was giving her almost four percent for five years. This particular product was a very “low-friction“ sale because she wasn’t earning anything on her certificates of deposit. This was a no-brainer!

But, I also proposed to her a second option. That second option was a long term care annuity that immediately tripled her money for purposes of long term care coverage. This option increased her $200,000 to $600,000 with very little underwriting. The underwriting component was important because she could not qualify for the fully underwritten products.

Both were great options and when she looked at me and asked, “Which option should I go with?”, what did I say? In my attempt to be as gentle and low pressure as possible (which is how I work) I told her, “You cannot go wrong with either one and it is just a choice of more accumulation potential with the MYGA annuity or the high long term care amount with the long term care annuity. It is whatever you are comfortable with Mrs. Bailey.”

As she told me she would think about it and get back in touch with me next week, I immediately realized what I already knew! I lacked conviction in my recommendation. I am never “wishy washy” but this time I was and therefore I lost the sale (and rightfully so). More important than “the sale,” I lost the opportunity to help her out. She is still sitting in the CD that is not earning anything. I will help her eventually, but this was a learning experience.

Sometimes people just want to be told what to do and don’t like “wishy-washiness.” I knew this before and I went against it in order to not disenchant this nice lady. Well, I got exactly what I was trying to avoid.

So, whether you are a politician or a financial professional, if you are speaking to the emotions of your customers and doing so with sound recommendations that have conviction, your customers will vote for you with their trust.

In 1835 there was a significant development in the firearms industry. This was the year a gentleman named Sam Colt received a patent on a handgun called the “Revolver.” Although there were previous versions of the revolver, they were rare. Sam Colt’s design would be the first one to get mass produced. This innovation was groundbreaking, as now one could fire five shots (later to become six shots) just as fast as one could pull the hammer back then subsequently pull the trigger.

This was in great contrast to the “single shot” designs that were widely available prior to this creation. By the mid to late 19th century this handgun was the standard for good guys and bad guys alike. With this innovation came the old west adage that “God created men and Sam Colt made them equal.” In other words, it didn’t matter how big or tough you were. If somebody else had a Colt, you were inferior to them. Or, if you both had a Colt, you were equal. They called the Colt Revolver “The Great Equalizer.”

Fast forward to today–a much more commercialized world where we are very much driven to be high performers at our jobs. I believe we have a new “equalizer” that can be a limiter on your performance relative to your competitors. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be inferior to my competitors!

What is the new “equalizer?” It is the 8:00 to 5:00 work schedule that somebody, somewhere institutionalized.

Let me discuss my “belief” by using a hypothetical example. Today, two people graduate from college at age 22 and enter financial services as insurance agents. These two individuals will each go through their careers and, like clockwork, will start work every day at 8:00 am and end the day at 5:00 pm for the next 43 years until they both retire. My belief is that their career trajectories would not diverge a significant amount. I will concede that one may be smarter than the other and one may be naturally more efficient than the other during that nine hour workday, but I don’t believe you would see a situation where one of those people would be making huge amounts of money by age 65 and the other would be destitute. Why? Because if we are all in the same profession, like being an insurance agent, we all are doing basically the same thing between those hours. It is the treadmill of phone calls, prospecting, client meetings, putting out fires, etc.

Again, one may say, “But what if one person was just a pure genius and the other was not the sharpest tool in the shed?” I would argue, as Angela Duckworth does in her bestselling book Grit, that IQ is secondary. I do not believe that our maker can create one person that is so far superior to another that the difference cannot be offset by hard work. As a matter of fact, in some of Duckworth’s studies she found that in some cases she has seen a negative correlation between how smart people are based on IQ and how successful they turn out to be in certain functions like national spelling bees, college graduation, etc. This is because the “smart people” may rest on their laurels while those that do not have natural talent work to offset their shortcomings through hard work and perseverance—i.e. grit! And in the end the person with the grit usually wins. Duckworth defines grit as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”

I have worked with and observed thousands of financial professionals over the last 20 years. As I have interacted with these financial professionals, I have always had a curious eye about what makes the top echelon so successful.

I have found that there are many inconsistencies in the activities, qualities and traits from top agent to top agent. Some do seminars, some don’t. Some know their product inside out and some don’t. Some are analytical, some aren’t. However, there is one consistent common activity among the top echelon. Take note: I am calling this an “activity” not a trait. The fact that this is an activity is great because “activities” can be controlled by you if you decide to adopt them!

What do they do that ensures that their paths “diverge” from their peers? Grit! They cheat the “great equalizer” of the 8:00 to 5:00 work schedule. They wake up early. They don’t buy into the 8:00 to 5:00 work schedule. They make their days have more hours in them so they are not “equalized” with their competitors.

I purposely call “grit” an activity because—as I tell my 12-year-old basketball player son—this is not something you need to be born with; it is a decision that is 100 percent in your control. Do you want to be great or do you want to “blend in?”

My challenge to you would be the same challenge that I have given to thousands of people over the years to whom I have spoken on this topic. I will tell you as I told them—if I am wrong, call me up six months from now and tell me that I was way off and I am full of it. I have not received any calls yet other than calls confirming my belief. My challenge would be to start by just setting your alarm clock 30 minutes earlier in the morning. If you do this I can promise you that you will feel as though those 30 minutes were much more meaningful than just 30 minutes.

Those 30 minutes—this is your time. I wake up at 4:30 every morning, and for three hours or so I have uninterrupted time to read and catch up on emails that the “treadmill” of the 8:00 to 5:00 workday will not allow me to do. I believe that if you are going to “cheat” the 8:00 to 5:00 work schedule it is best to do it in the morning—because the morning hours are your hours!

I know this message is much different than the messages one may hear from “efficiency consultants” or infomercials that you may see at 3:00 am. Many times, those messages suggest that there is some brainy secret ingredient that allows one to evade the hard work and the grinding that our business requires. These messages are usually something like, “Work less but work more efficiently.” Or, “Be a millionaire by only working 20-hour weeks.” Or my favorite, “Work smarter, not harder.”

To be very facetious, although I am in no shape to play professional football, I think I am going to try out for the Patriots next year. When Bill Belichick asks me what the heck I am thinking, I will tell him that although I have not worked to have the athletic ability that the other team members have, I will just work “smarter” than the others. Let’s see how that works. It will last one play until I get hit by some beast who grinded away his whole life to achieve a low four second 40-yard dash time and a 500-pound bench-press.

Whether it’s athletics or business, the rules are the same!

Please note that I am a family man. I spend every second with my family that I can, and I make it meaningful. I am not suggesting that work should cannibalize your life. What I am suggesting however is that if you want to reach the top echelon as a professional it is a grind. The great news is that it’s a choice that you can make and, if you make that choice, your success is guaranteed.

In discussing the power of long work hours and grit I would like to share a personal story. I grew up in a small town in Southwest Iowa. I was always a head taller than the other kids in my grade, but I didn’t even touch a basketball prior to the seventh grade as my family was not much of a “sports family.” Therefore I never had much of an interest in basketball even though many of my friends loved it. Plus, I never had natural athletic talent like many of my friends. I was very uncoordinated and could barely walk and chew gum without tripping when I was young and growing fast.

My lack of desire changed one day, however, when I was in seventh grade. It took one person, Coach Hook, who was our varsity basketball coach, to light a fire of “grit” under me. By the way, Coach Hook was known in Southwest Iowa as a coach that had a long history of building some of the best basketball teams in the state by investing time in his kids year after year.

Well, that day he ran into me while I was outside the middle school waiting for the bus. He took an immediate interest in how tall I was relative to the other kids. He then started speaking with me about how I could be a great basketball player and he wanted to see me work to be a star by the time I came into high school. He continued these conversations with me every time he saw me and eventually convinced me that I could be a good player if I wanted to be.

As I worked to get better at basketball I remember looking up to some of the “stars” that were juniors and seniors on the varsity team of that time. I remember thinking about them and wondering how much practice it took them to get to the skill level they achieved. Did it take 50,000 practice shots? Did it take 100,000 practice shots? Did it take a million practice shots? Then I remember thinking that whatever that number was, it didn’t matter because I would pass that immediately. In other words, I would “accelerate” the development process by relentlessly practicing every chance I got so that I would not be “as good” as those people by my senior year—I would be better than them by my sophomore year. This was a cool thing because the number of “practice shots” I took every day was 100 percent in my control. Day after day it was my choice how much I practiced and thus how quickly I would surpass the number of hours that those “stars” had ever practiced.

At our house we had a very primitive basketball hoop where the pole that held the backboard was basically just “buried” in the gravel driveway. That was my basketball court, a gravel driveway. Many nights under the flood light that hung from our garage I would stay up until the morning hours practicing as my hands became coated in dirt and gravel dust. Sure enough, by my sophomore year in high school I was starting Varsity and was all conference for three of my four years in high school and ultimately went on to play in college.

To me those years were confirmation that, although I was an uncoordinated seventh grader relative to my peers, there were no shortcomings that could not be offset by hard work. The mindset for the rest of my life was formed in those years!

In other words, we are all humans and therefore we cannot be created that much different than one another. The difference is grit, practice and perseverance. These three things are a choice–not something one needs to be born with.

To wrap this up: We work in a great business that deserves effort beyond what the “average” business requires. The national median income for an entire household today is around $60,000. I would argue that in our business we have the ability to make much more than what the “median” household makes. And what does the “median person” do? They go to work at 8:00 and come home at 5:00. They don’t touch a book. They sleep in on the weekends. They “work smarter, not harder.”

Do you fall victim to “the great equalizer” and go to work at eight and come home at five? Or, do you accelerate the process of developing your talents, developing your book of business, developing your team, etc., by getting up early and leveraging “Grit”?

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”—Calvin Coolidge