We look forward to the Van Mueller newsletter every month. It's chock-full of sound bites, sales tips, and eye-opening statistics. Here are our favorite parts of the December 2017 edition. We're sharing the full introduction, and 2 of the 7 monthly sales ideas. If you like what you read, we encourage you to click here and become a subscriber.
Reprinted with the author's permission.
December, 2017 – 7 Ideas and Views Newsletter by Van Mueller
I am really excited about sharing this month's newsletter with all of you. The next decade will be filled with volatility and uncertainty. Our job will be to replace those feelings with certainty and opportunity.
We have the tools we need to provide both certainty and opportunity. What most of us don't have is a true understanding of what is really happening with taxes, our economy, the world economy, retirement, investing, saving, government; at all levels.
How do you help prospects and clients build successful future and successful retirements if everyone is lying to them?
Is the current proposed tax legislation a tax cut or a tax increase? If it adds to future deficits aren't we passing the buck to our children and grandchildren?
Are the current records for growth being set by stock markets all over the planet real or have they been temporarily manufactured by the world's Central Banks printing $13 trillion of “fake” money? Are the gains real or will they disappear as fast as you can say the word “crash”?
Will healthcare costs ever get under control or will they continue to rise to a level that will prevent most Americans from having access to quality healthcare. Actuarial firms can actually extrapolate heath care costs being between $70,000 and $80,000 per year for a family of four as soon as 2030. Where will we find the money to even begin to deal with those exorbitant costs?
With all the money that's being printed, could we see double digit inflation again in the next 5 or 10 years? How would we deal with that occurrence?
Many, even a majority of pensions at the state, county, municipality and town level are spectacularly underfunded. What will happen to the promised benefits? Where will these entities that cannot print money get the required revenue? Will they raise taxes? Will they lower benefits? Will they borrow even more money or will they do a combination of all of the above? Even if you receive your pension will your standard of living be reduced by all the costs required to get the benefit?
Even if you receive your pension will your standard of living be reduced by all the costs required to get the benefit?
What about teacher pensions and fire and police pensions? Aren't they woefully underfunded? Many people choose these careers because of the promised pensions. If those pensions do not come to fruition, what will happen to the quality of people serving in those positions? When we need education the most, what will happen to the quality or even supply of teachers?
Protection from increased terrorism will cost more and more as the incidents of terrorism increase.
The cost of defending our country from ever increasing adversaries will be enormous.
WHERE WILL WE GET THIS MONEY?
All of this will come to a head in the next 10 or 15 years. This is very exciting for all of us in our profession. The agents/advisors who experience enormous success in the next decade do not sell policies. The agent/advisor that has success will have conversations about all of the above issues and more.
Successful agents will help prospects and clients be in control of, rather than be controlled by, taxes, loss of benefits or increased costs for benefits, inflation, volatility and longevity.
Successful agents will help prospects and clients be in control of, rather than be controlled by, taxes, loss of benefits or increased costs for benefits, inflation, volatility and longevity.
How can we position these issues with prospects and clients so they will view them as opportunities rather than challenges?
People don't buy doom and gloom. We get their attention with it. If you don't plan you could be devastated by these issues.
People do buy opportunity. Here is a chance for you and your family and your business to take advantage of what is happening rather than being hurt by it. Wouldn't that be amazing Mr. & Mrs. Prospect, if that was actually possible?
Now, let's be honest. I have been saying for three years that a crash was coming and it hasn't happened. Our stock markets keep reaching higher and higher levels.
Why hasn't it happened yet? The answer is easy, only people do not want to hear the answer. They refuse to believe the information that is available to them. They are told over and over that the markets will still go up and up. They want to believe that with every fiber of their being. Statistically, we know they will be wrong. 90 percent of Americans, easily the richest country on the planet, will not be able to afford retirement. Our clients, our prospects, our friends and neighbors will get killed again by the stock market, bond market, and real estate market when they crash. They won't even know what hit them.
This is a fake stock market that is not supported by any true fundamentals, like real profit growth or real job growth or real product development. This market has been overcome by something more powerful than all of those things and that spigot is about to be turned off.
What is this miraculous and amazingly powerful benefit powering the market upward?
What is this miraculous and amazingly powerful benefit powering the market upward?
It is that almighty power called LIQUIDITY! The Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of China and the European Central Bank have printed $13 billion dollars out of thin air in the last 8 years.
In China, interest rates are ridiculously low. In Japan and Europe interest rates in many cases are still negative. Yes, negative. You have to pay them to hold your money. There is still over $10 trillion of negative interest rates in these countries. So, when their Central Bank prints more money do they invest it in their countries or do they put money in our “hot” stock and bond markets?
Additionally, our companies, with all this additional liquidity available at historically low rates didn't use the majority of the money for research and development and job creation. They used the excess money to buy back their own stock. This reduced the amount of shares of their stock in the market causing the price to increase.
A recent study concluded that 80 percent of the stock market's increase we a direct result of money printing. Another 40 percent of growth occurred because of companies buying back their own stock. I know that adds up to more than 100 percent. Based on this information the stock market would have lost money over the last decade if not for these two manipulations.
What will happen when those countries take their money back? What will happen when cheap money disappears? It will be one of the worst economic disasters ever. Almost no one is prepared for what will happen.
Why don't I worry? Why do I not feel like I have missed out on anything? This was a long winded set up for the information I want you to share with you now.
Why don't I worry? Why do I not feel like I have missed out on anything? This was a long winded set up for the information I want you to share with you now.
On October 18, 2017, Dent Research provided a very important chart. Before I saw this chart I tried to explain how tenuous the gains in this market were. I would share that the Dow Jones Industrial Average was around 10,000 in the year 2000 and that in 2010 the Dow was around 10,000 and I believe the Dow will be around 10,000 in the year 2020. That is literally no gains for an entire generation if you buy and hold.
I am not saying you shouldn't be in the market. I am saying you should have a strategy to minimize the losses and maximize the gains.
Here is the title of the chart at Dent Research:
“Major Bubbles Tend to Crash 41% in 2.5 Months.”
Some of the examples are the 2015 Nasdaq Biotech crash, the 2015 Shanghai Composite, the 2008 Dow, the 2000 Nasdaq, 2000 Nasdaq Biotech and the 2000 Nasdaq Internet and the 1990 Nikkei and the 1987 Dow Jones.
As I am writing this, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is 60 points from 24,000. Amazing! This is a 9 year fake bull market. When it crashes it will happen fast.
What is 40 percent of 24,000. That's right. It is 9,600 points. That would take the Dow back to 14,400. Do you know when the Dow was 14,400? That's right, September 2007 the month the 2007 to 2009 crash started. That's 10 years of returns lost in 2 months. Also, please don't tell me you will know when to get out. Brokers are trained to handle these drops. When the market drops 10 percent, the client will call the broker and the broker will say this has happened before. It will bounce right back. The client will be reassured. Then the market will be down 20 percent. The client will call again. The broker will explain if you get out now those are real losses. No one can time the market. The client will stay invested. Then the market will fall 40 or 50 or even 60 percent. The client will call again, this time distraught, and the broker will advise that you have to stay in now or you will never make your money back. Not understanding the time value of money is destroying peoples' retirements.
We are in a position to show our prospects and clients a better way. We can show them how to not incur losses. We can show them how to build liquid and accessible accounts that can be used to take advantage of downturns rather than be hurt by them. We can do that while providing leveraged benefits for long term care and critical illness and death. We must learn how to use life insurance policies to their best advantage.
We are in a position to show our prospects and clients a better way. We can show them how to not incur losses.
So, even though I have been wrong for three years, I will ultimately be right. That is the only outcome that is satisfactory. It only matters what you have at the end of the game. It doesn't matter what you have while the game is in progress. That is what so many Americans are not giving consideration to. Please ask everyone questions that will inspire them to look at the consequences of staying in these markets too long. Please give this serious consideration on behalf of your prospects and clients.
I would like to discuss one more thing before I begin the sales ideas. I want to talk to you about a product that my current broker dealer will not allow me to sell. It is a tool that I believe will become more and more useful and more and more valuable in the decade ahead.
As you all know, I attend an enormous amount of meetings every year. For years now, I have come across a gentleman named Wayne McClintock. We joke around for a couple of minutes because one of my favorite movies of all time is the John Wayne movie, McClintock. Then, we have a lengthy discussion about all the ways his product could benefit my prospects and clients. I then have to explain that I wish I could use it, but my broker dealer doesn't allow it: YET.
What am I talking about? Life Settlements. Wayne McClintock is an Executive Vice President with Asset Life Settlements. Very soon, when the industry understands how valuable these are to our prospects and clients the product will become ubiquitous in our industry.
Life Settlements can provide benefits to our clients that are more than their current cash value and less than their death benefit based on important considerations such as current health and age. It allows life policies that would be discarded to provide extra benefits than the cash surrender value.
I think access to opportunities like Life Settlements will be vital for assisted living and long term care costs. It might allow someone enough money so they can private pay for the first year which would allow then to choose their facility. Those of us who deal with issues like this know the difference between being “placed” in a Medicaid facility or being able to choose your facility because you are a private payer. By 2027, costs for assisted living could approach $70,000 to $100,000 per year and long term care costs will rise to between $150,000 to $250,000 per year.
Where will people find the money? Using Life Settlements will help. The people in our industry must keep an open mind when it comes to products that allow us to leverage for the benefit of our prospects and clients. We must give consideration to tools like Life Settlements if we will serve these people to the best of our ability.
Because of people like Wayne McClintock and his company, “Asset Life Settlements,” I have the information I need to properly look after my people to the best of my ability.
If I was any of you I would take a few minutes and call Wayne at 650-224-7223 or email him at [email protected].
It will be important to be prepared for the onslaught of older aged people that will inhabit our country. This is another tool that I believe will see increased importance in the future. Wouldn't it be amazing if you had this information for someone who desperately needed it?
Give Wayne McClintock a call, 1-650-224-7225.
Let's move on to the ideas in this newsletter. I am very excited about this first idea as it is something I have been hoping and dreaming about for years. It is now reality.
Let's get started.
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We're passing on two of the newsletter's monthly sales ideas - every issue of the newsletter contains 7 ideas, plus one idea for the Canadian market. Subscribe to get them all.
Idea #1: Vanmark Life
It has always been my dream to present ongoing training for agents and advisors. I have tried to do that with CD's and a monthly newsletter, articles and speeches. I have worked hard to provide current and easily useable ideas that would help agents get more appointments and when they got those appointments, do a better job of understanding what the prospect or client was trying to achieve. I felt this was important not only financially, but intellectually, emotionally and even spiritually. Happiness is achieved by our prospects and clients when they are able to build financial and retirement certainty into their lives.
I have always felt that when you got professional at this undertaking that you were doing much more than selling policies. You were providing the freedom for people to do the things they “wanted” to do rather than “had” to do in their lives. This freedom allows them to achieve happiness because they are not always worrying about financial concerns.
The secret to success in our business is not study. The secrets to success in our business are practice, rehearsal and repetition. The agents that I had more access to learned the skills faster and achieved the success they aspired to. This was the part that I did not have an organized methodology for: It was more haphazard.
Then I met two of the smartest people you could ever be around. Mark Miletello is an agent, manager and trainer of agents. He and his agents use many of the techniques we have shared and have achieved remarkable success. He and his agents have dramatically increased their production in an astoundingly short amount of time.
He introduced me to Lance H. Johnson, who is a brilliant technology and website guru who has magnificent marketing skills. They asked if we could work together to provide a site for agents and agencies to learn how to build production quickly and efficiently.
I would work with life, health, annuity and mutual fund agents and share ways to dramatically and quickly increase their appointments and their production.
I would also share ideas with property and casualty agents and their agencies that would increase their life, annuity and mutual fund production without harming their property and casualty business. We will share easy ways for property and casualty agents to go back through their entire books and get appointments for life insurance and annuities and mutual funds.
This can all be accomplished rapidly and efficiently learning powerful and pertinent questions that are not adversarial and are done in a conversational manner. Prospects and clients do not feel pressured. They actually feel engaged because you are asking for their opinions about issues that really matter. This can be learned easily.
Mark, who is a multi lines agent, will show how to market and build relationships that provides enough leads and revenue to build a successful agency quickly and efficiently.
I will be talking about Mark more in future issues.
Finally, Lance Johnson has built sales software that will allow you to organize and efficiently use all your tools to build a powerful full service agency, I will be sharing more with you about Lance in future issues.
Please go to https://vanmark.life/ and learn more about the small investment it will require for you to have access to the ongoing training, inspiration, sales ideas and tools you will need to build a successful practice and/or agency.
There will be monthly webinars and podcasts. You will have access to the information you need as events occur, and you will have the support and guidance of people who have trained hundreds and maybe thousands of agents to achieve successful results in our industry. This is the greatest time ever to be an agent. This will help you to participate in that opportunity.
Please check it out. https://vanmark.life/
Idea #6: Caregivers in America
Because less and less people will be able to afford long term care, more and more people will become caregivers.
AARP's recent monthly issue had quite a number of articles about caregivers. Currently, one out of six workers in America is a caregiver: It impacts them professionally, financially, physically and emotionally.
This number will increase dramatically in the years ahead. We must help our prospects and clients plan for this eventuality.
Please get your hands on the November 2017 issue of AARP Bulletin. There are a number of articles about care giving.
Title: "Financial Caregiving" Is Widespread and Expensive
www.thinkadvisor.com (Think Advisor, November 7, 2017)
http://www.thinkadvisor.com/2017/11/07/financial-caregiving-is-widespread-and-expensive
Title: What Is The Best-Kept Secret Of Caregivers In America? 40 Percent Of Them Are Men
www.aarp.org/ (AARP, November 2017)
https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/life-balance/info-2017/male-caregivers-increasing-role.html
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