60-80 hours per week
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What do you guys know about buy-sell agreements? This seems like an area where value could really be added to business owners. Is it best to contact an insurance wholesaler for training? Do you establish a relationship with a CPA and attorney before approaching businesses?Most business owners I’ve encountered don’t want to hear about funds of the month. Most business owners reinvest back into their businesses. Therefore, I think you will have a tough hill to climb if you focus on business owners. That said, you can be a savior (and be paid well) by setting up key-person and buy-sell plans for businesses. However, if you are going to work for a wirehouse, you won’t get the training needed to make this work.
The moral of this is you’ll have to work with individuals in order to survive.
Borkerboy, they are very simple to do. Let me clarify. We don’t do buy-sell agreements. We fund buy-sell agreement.
For example, a buy-sell agreement for death is nothing more than a legal agreement that states that if Joe and Sam are business partners and Joe dies, Sam will buy Joe's share of the business from Joe's wife and Joe's wife will agree to sell it to him for a predetermined price. Why is a buy-sell needed? Without one, the business usually can't survive a death of an owner. Ex. Joe dies. There is no buy-sell in place. Sam is now partners with Joe's wife. Joe's wife has no ability or desire to help run the business. Sam doesn't want to be a partner with Joe's wife. Sam now has to do all of the work and still only gets half of the profit. Why are we needed for the buy-sell agreement? Let's assume that a buy-sell agreement is in force. The buy-sell says that Sam must buy out Joe's wife for $1,000,000. Sam doesn't have $1,000,000, nor does he have access to this money. The buy-sell is worthless. Life insurance is used to fund the buy-sell agreement. Joe dies. Sam collects $1,000,000. He uses this $1,000,000 to pay Joe's wife. Sam is happy. He has 100% of the business. Joe's wife is happy. She has $1,000,000. Joe is happy (and dead). His business can survive. His partner can continue to support his family. His wife benefited from the fruits of his labor. So many firms that need buy-sells don't have buy-sells in place. Many have them in place, but they are unfunded which is useless. Those that have them funded, usually just have them funded for death. They need to be funded for disability also. Life insurance for buy-sells is no different than any other life insurance. The difference is simply the ownership and beneficiary designations. DI for buy-sells is different than individual DI.I agree, great stuff, anon.
What steps should a person take to get involved in funding buy-sells? Is this more appropriate for the indy channel than captive folks?No, I have done buy/sells. It’s really very easy. It’s just a life insurance ticket. However, you do need to direct them to the appropriate attorney to get the buy/sell agreement drawn up (referral!). You do this, you then have made all parties whole upon death, you wrote a life ticket, you now have an “in” with the personal money of the partners & families, and have provided a referral to an attorney. Win/Win/Win/Win.
Thanks for the kind words.
Borker, it's appropriate for anybody who doesn't have to put insurance through a grid.
I don't think any special steps are needed to get involved. I'm a fact finder kind of guy. "Hey Mr. Prospect, what are your financial goals?" An hour later, I'll know his goals and objectives and what he is currently doing. If he owns a business, a buy-sell will probably help him achieve his financial goals. If it does, we'll talk about it. If not, I won't bring up the subject.
I'm not so sure that you want to get the attorney involved before getting the life insurance in force if there is not already a buy-sell agreement. Why bring someone in who can muddy the waters unless you have control over the attorney? Also, until someone applies and gets approved for coverage, there is no way to know if insurance is a viable solution.
With disability buy-out, the agreement must be immediately put in force.
The bottom line is don't look for buy-sell agreements. Look to help business owners accomplish their financial goals. Do we really care if this means that they buy personal life insurance or business disability buy-out or start a 401(k) or rollover their wife's IRA? Let's make our money by helping others achieve their financial goals!
If you stop to think about it, this industry cracks me up. We hire guys/girls in their 20's to be the prospecting arm of our industry. We hire the people who just graduated or are very early in their careers and tell them to bring in X amount of assets by Y amount of time. We tell them to get on the phone and dial X amount of phone numbers to achieve Y amount of results. We take the least knowledgeable, least experienced, least connected in the community, and least recognized faces and send them out to gather assets in the community. I'm I the only one who sees a problem here?
What about today's societial views, economic standing, or marketability makes a Branch Manager hire a 20 something with no contacts to cold call for $XX Million Dollars. I will probably get completely slammed for this, but how does anyone make it in 2008 by solely cold calling? With Caller I.D., magazine/insurance/vacuum cleaner tele-marketers on every other dial, telephone scams all over dateline I'm amazed anyone even took my calls when I tried cold calling. Maybe it stems from the fact that I work in a town with less than 1,000,000 and not a single advisor in our office has made it from cold calling since 82', but I don't see how it's possible any more. Maybe in the really big cities where you literally have 10,000,000+ people to call on and if you were on the phone from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. you can make it, but there are better ways to make it in this business. I know this post will get slammed because I have read many post of people on the phone cold calling all day and making it. I am not degrading cold calling or saying it doesn't work at all, and I admire the guys like Judge and Bondguy's post about working hard and cold calling. Here in the MidWest in cities with less than 1,000,000 people, it's much more about who you know, who they can introduce you too, and your reputation than it is about how many dials you made to Joe Stranger on Hickory Street. I do realize the Mid West is completely different from the Coasts and the way we do business here is different, and what we do that works is different than what other people do that works. I just want the fellow rookies out there to know that there are other options that cold calling all day, and there are advisors out there who are very successful that have never made a cold call in their life. What is much more important than the method you use to contact people, is the number of people you are contacting and the quality of conversations you are having with them. [/quote]I’ve found that attending funerals for people you don’t know works wonders. Make sure you go to the after buriel ‘party’. You can tell the family you knew the dear departed from some association / club / school they attended. Plus you get afree lunch.