Selling systems

I know that MassMutual allows their agents to use it - with certain caveats from their home office about recommendations - such as the proper use of Home Equity, etc.

The biggest problem with LEAP itself, is the learning of how to use the software (and being reliant on it). It's been 10 years since I used Wealth In Motion, but the learning curve is rather steep... and I also had Al Dickens (National LEAP trainer) come out to my agency 3 times to teach it... at a cost of $600 each for each agent that attended.



Don Blanton had his securities licenses while he was establishing and building MoneyTrax (Circle of Wealth). You can look him up on BrokerCheck that he finally gave them up a couple of years ago to focus on life insurance production with Ohio National and a couple of other companies.

For my favorite Insurance Pro Shop, there are many people who have had securities licensing improve their results using their training. One particular agent I know got his securities licensing after he got his training as he transitioned his focus more towards retirement income planning. He still praises IPS heavily (as I do) on the FB page.

I'll list two testimonials from the IPS site:

"Lew, I have been in the insurance and securities industry since 1965. I was a stock/broker and Life Insurance and Annuity Coordinator for E. F. Hutton for the state of North Carolina in1978. In 1981, I was president of FSC Agency (a large broker dealer in Atlanta). From 1982 to 1987, I was president and founder of Pilot Financial Services, a FINRA broker dealer. I have attended sales training for dozens of large insurance companies. You offer the best client presentation, and marketing and lead generation strategies I have ever seen. Sincerely, Your friend Steve Patterson."
Steve Patterson, RVP at Cherry Financial Partners, Ltd., NC, (47 years in the business)

“I must say that as a Financial Consultant with a securities license, I admit I was a bit apprehensive in getting your material. But I did purchase the Advanced Fact Finding Techniques Video, which in turn convinced me to get involved with your personal coaching and the members only site. For the amount of money I spent, for the amount of such useful information, it is just incredible. I have logged hours, upon hours, of reading of such priceless, quality and helpful material on just about every aspect of the business imaginable. I have done Annuity Seminars for about a year now with marginal results. After applying what I have learned from you in just a few short weeks, I not only improved the quality of my existing seminar, but the appointments I have made from the seminars have become much stronger. Potential clients come into my office, ready for me to help them. Gone was the skeptical attitude of, OK, what can you do for me? Replaced by, do you think you could help me too? Plus, they brought in all their statements, 1040 forms, old annuities, life insurance policies and long term care policies as well. Also, after just a few of your coaching sessions, which I highly recommend, have helped me put all of this together very quickly. Your smooth and simple, yet thorough approach to your Advanced Questioning Techniques, have not only helped me improve my questioning, but makes interviews exciting as well as rewarding. Thank You.”
John Guntkowski, RFC, CSA - FL (20 years in business)
 
I'll give you a short-cut to learning the LEAP software: It's about scenario comparisons.

You start off with the "Ideal World". In the ideal world, there is no death, disability, taxes, inflation, planned obsolescence, technological change, Lost opportunity costs, etc.

Then you begin to show the cumulating effects of wealth eroding factors:
"Ideal World"
"Ideal World + Taxes"
"Ideal World + Taxes & Inflation"
"Ideal World + Taxes & Inflation + PO/TC"
"Ideal World + Taxes & Inflation + PO/TC + LOC", etc.

You'll "play the movie" - which is to slide the age factors down to their retirement age and see how their assets grow based on certain assumptions over that time (or run out of money).

Your goal is to help them restore as much wealth back as close to the "Ideal World" as possible. (There is primarily one asset that is nearly immune to all these effects: permanent cash value life insurance.)

The comprehensive process takes a few meetings:
1st meeting: "Personal Finance and Wealth Building" & PS&G model bookelts
2nd meeting: Fact-find (or you can use their electronic online fact-find and let the client fill everything in.
3rd meeting: Protection Module
4th meeting: Savings Module
5th meeting: Growth Module
6th meeting: External Design (integrating the protection, savings, and growth together)

A guy I partnered with at MassMutual has this article he wrote in InsuranceNewsNet magazine about reverse mortgages and life insurance. (And yes, he has securities licensing and a clean record with FINRA for his conduct with clients.) Reverse mortgages are discussed in depth in The American College's new RICP designation. (Of course, FINRA has their warning page for consumers to be cautious, but they don't say to stay away completely.)

Living Benefits — Only the Tip of Life Insurance Value

Expect to learn about "Permission Slip" retirement income spending strategies and integrating a reverse mortgage into the picture. I have a couple of white papers/articles on "Permission Slip" spending concept that you might want to check out. I primarily learned about it from LEAP Systems and I'm not the most "thrilled" with it, but I understand it.

https://davidkinderfinancial.wixsit...-a-Permission-Slip-to-Spend-Down-Other-Assets

The notion of the "permission slip" is that you are leveraging the guarantees of the life insurance policy death benefit to go ahead and spend your other assets because you know they'll be replaced by the life insurance.


You'll learn a lot about LEAP... if you stick with it for a while. You won't learn this much in just a 14-day trial. They compare it to learning a musical instrument - it can take years to get to "mastery" level. Which also implies that you'll need to spend money for training sessions put on by other LEAP trainers to understand the concepts and communicate them to clients.

By contrast - the Insurance Pro Shop has online video training for just $30/month... and no, they don't talk about "permission slip" spend down.

The Leading Insurance Marketing And Sales Training, Tips And Tools!
 
Thanks, I heard LEAP was a learning process and I don’t want to waste a lot of time on something I wont use. My main market is wealth transfer can any of these selling systems be used for that? I have the insmark software that works well just seeing if anything may be better
 
One other "secret" to understanding LEAP systems (or permanent life insurance strategies as primary planning) is "Person A vs Person B".

Person A does permanent life insurance while Person B does it "the traditional way" (we can call it "buy term and invest the difference" if you want).

It's not because "Person A" is inherently superior planning. It's because of the fallacies and assumptions in "Person B" planning. In essence, you "blow up the island" for Person B so they can see how it just doesn't work for real life... and Person A becomes the superior planning model.
 
I used to know some advisors that used LEAP. Some were securities licensed and some were not.

All of them dropped it as far as I know. They say it is way too time-intensive for both the advisor and the client. These guys were not dealing with broke or unsophisticated people. But they said it was just way too much for a client to sit through and remember five or 10 years from now.

You don't expect clients to remember everything. But you want them to at least remember the main reasons for the decisions you make together.

One guy told me that clients were overwhelmed with the info and he felt they were just signing to get the process over with. It's enough info that they end up trusting you at the moment because they're overloaded with info, but then over the years question start to build up because they don't remember the foundational reasons they did it.

LEAP is more than just selling life insurance. However, the end goal is to sell life insurance.

This is why I don't make it a habit to convince people they need Permanent Life Insurance to build cash value. I mainly help people who already see the value in it and want a true expert to advise them.
 
Last edited:
Thanks, I heard LEAP was a learning process and I don’t want to waste a lot of time on something I wont use. My main market is wealth transfer can any of these selling systems be used for that? I have the insmark software that works well just seeing if anything may be better

Perhaps TaxClarity from Covisum might be helpful? You can illustrate the effects of various taxes and then make the appropriate recommendation.

Tax Clarity
 
I gotta admit that I was surprised to see you asking about LEAP after you posted this just a few days ago: https://insurance-forums.com/community/posts/1273009/

I agree with Scagnt83 about "trance" selling. In fact, the whole thing is just way too complicated and takes too long. And generally, YOU are doing most of the talking, rather than asking more questions and keeping the client involved. That's why I think that complaints happen more often for agents and advisors who use these systems - client forget why they bought why they bought - or they only bought because they finally "trusted" them.


If I were to use the LEAP system today (or anything like it - such as TruthConcepts, Circle of Wealth, Living Balance Sheet, WealthBuilding Cornerstones, etc.), I'd charge a consultation fee for the entire thing and only use it with affluent or high net worth individuals where I could be reasonably assured for a $50,000+ commission. It's just such a hassle.


I know that Kim Butler with Prosperity Economic Partners charges a $3,500 consultation fee for the entire process. (Her RIA discloses that fees can range from $300 to $10,000.) BTW, her RIA (Prosperity Economic Partners) is essentially a fee-only RIA. She set it up just to have securities compliance in her recommendations. You can look up her ADV Part 2 and read that "PEP does not provide investment management services; therefore, PEP does not exercise discretion on behalf of clients."
 
and generally, YOU are doing most of the talking, rather than asking more questions and keeping the client involved.

That is one of the biggest problems with it in my opinion. There is so much for the agent to go over, it leaves very little time for the client to actually speak their mind and express their needs and comfort level with various solutions.

Getting client talking and opening up is key. LEAP leaves little time for that. It's more like you're the teacher and they're the student, not an advisor and client having a back-and-forth conversation.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top