Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Jeremy Lach, President of Empire Marketing Partners-Scaling to 8-Figure Annuity Production Without Burning Out

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Jeremy has spent more than 20 years in the financial services industry building, scaling, and strengthening distribution channels for independent financial professionals across the country. His career began in retail financial services in 1999, shortly after graduating from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. He then spent two years with John Hancock Financial, where he built a strong foundation in product knowledge, advisor support, and client strategy.In 2001, Jeremy transitioned into the wholesale channel with American Financial in Minneapolis; a move that shaped the trajectory of my career. Since then, He has dedicated myself to helping independent insurance reps, Advisor Representatives (IARs), RIAs, and Registered Representatives grow their businesses with intention and discipline.In today’s IMO world, support often comes *after* they’ve already proven themselves. Empire was built to change that.Jeremy believes in identifying talent early and backing it immediately, not waiting until production numbers make the decision easy. At Empire Marketing Partners, they support advisors at launch and throughout their growth by being a stable, strategic partner from day one.He is committed to proving that through service, experience, and consistency, they bring more value than anyone else in the space. This isn’t transactional. They operate like family, and their actions reflect that commitment every step of the way.Today, Jeremy focused not only on supporting advisors operationally, but also on strengthening his brand and influence within the industry—aligning with like-minded professionals and firms who are committed to growth, excellence, and long-term impact.Learn more: http://www.empiremps.com/Jeremy Lach is the Founder of Empire Marketing Partners, an independent marketing organization (IMO) that supports licensed insurance professionals. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast/interview are for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as individualized investment, tax, or legal advice. Empire Marketing Partners does not provide direct financial planning or investment advisory services to the public. Insurance and annuity products are offered through properly licensed insurance professionals and are subject to state availability, carrier underwriting guidelines, and suitability requirements. Guarantees referenced, if any, are backed solely by the financial strength and claims-paying ability of the issuing insurance carrier. Financial professionals and consumers should consult their own qualified advisors regarding their specific situation before making any financial decisions.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-jeremy-lach-president-of-empire-marketing-partners-scaling-to-8-figure-annuity-production-without-burning-out

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Hello and welcome to this episode of influential entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have back with us, Jeremy Latch, who's the president of Empire Marketing Partners, and we'll be talking about scaling to eight-figure annuity production, without burning out. Jeremy, welcome back to the program. Always great to be here, Mike. Thanks for having me.

Hey, I love this title because I think when you start putting numbers to things, it starts getting real. Like eight figure annuity production and people are already starting to make that calculation in their mind. And obviously the commission structure on this versus that and whatever that is for you, you know, make that calculation. But the point is raise your mindset, raise your ceiling, raise your belief. ability to know that it's possible to go to eight figure annuity production, but the most important thing is without burning out. Because I'm sure we could all work 22 hours a day and hit some monster number, but then what good are you? You're you're gone from your family and you are now, you know, a pile of, you know, desperation. So get us started with where you start working

with your advisors to help them even just begin to believe that that's possible. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and it is possible, right? I mean, it's, it's really up to the individual advisors and a lot of advisors are seeing it and believing it today. And there's a lot of advisors that are just kind of stuck, you know, and sometimes it's like, hey, I've got to, I've got to double that. I've got to double or imagine. I mean, for me for me to do that. And in doing so requires so much more work, so much more effort, so much more time away from my family. You know, and Mike, those are all the things that we don't want to see. I mean, at the end of the day, one of the things we like to talk about here at Empire is we want you to be able to enjoy and build and scale your business. But in doing so, you never should have to sacrifice those things that are really important to you. And the most important thing to you is family, right? So, you know, that's what our atmosphere is. That's what our culture is. And we want to help provide those opportunities to you without having to sacrifice those things. But that's immediately what is in the head of a lot of advisors we talk to when they're at it's saying, if I have to double my production,

Jeremy, that's a lot more money I got to spend. And that's a lot more time. and a lot more energy and a lot more effort. So one of the things that we want to help them first and foremost with is just operational infrastructure. You know, things have to be in place from your CRM automation, you know, appointment scheduling systems that you might have in place. And for one, some of our top offices, they've got what they call is to find follow-up cadence. You know, everything has to be there.

So we want to help you build those, that type of operational infrastructure, first and foremost, Mike, because if you don't have that in place, none of this matters. All that automation is going to help you create that consistency. And that's going to allow you to create more capacity just in themselves. You know, you said a word that I was about to say a quote, because if you remember in our past conversations, we're both quote guys and we love, you know, bringing up quotes and analogies. I was going to say there's a guy way back in the day by the name of Patterson. And I think he came up with a register company.

But the point is he was known for saying build capacity in his. advance of demand because if you crank up demand and you've got a, you know, rocky capacity or foundation or operation, it crumbles. It implodes. So you've got to have those systems in place so that when you start scaling up, you can handle it. And have you ever heard of the acronym for what system stands for? No, I have not. So here's a good one. I learned it years ago. It stands for save yourself, time, energy, and money. And it's just. someone that came up with it, but the S-Y-S-T-E-M, save yourself, time, energy, and money. Well, a system will.

So talk about what systems a producer has to have in place to make sure that they're on the path to scaling the eight figures, but most importantly, without creating that chaos. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, you know, from your first appointment to the actual delivery of a policy, everything has to be documented and repeatable, okay? Right. So I'll give me an example. I mean, if every prospect goes through the same discovery process, the same income analysis,

the same, you know, recommendation framework, your growth is going to become a lot more predictable instead of feeling like it's really, really overwhelming to yourself, right? So the process has to be super clear up front. And if you're a lone ranger, it's super difficult, but you have to make sure you have processes in place. If you have a team, you want to make sure that you're, you've got a team that can execute without supervision, right, Mike? Like, you can't be who you are without having a great supporting cast.

I can't be who I want to be or who I am without having a great supporting cast. So first of all, you've got to have, you know, that's how you're going to scale without sacrificing any of the experiences to make sure you have a repeatable delivery from the very beginning to, from your first appointment, to the delivery of a policy, to the cases. Everything should be documented and repeatable. so you have to have some systems that are in place. Yes, we have those as well, whether it's a CRM acquisition,

whether it's access to technology that we have. We feel like we definitely have access to technology for the advisors working with us today that has definitely changed their business, definitely changed their lives because you have to have something that you know is going to be there to support you, and so you don't have to be constantly worrying about that.

Because as you know, Mike, if you're sitting there concerned about every detail from point A to point Z, and you're trying to get your, involved in that process the entire time along the way, you're going to have a problem. You're going to have issues. And it's going to be harder for you to scale because everything just always seems overwhelming. So processes and technology.

You know, and we could do literally a whole weekend seminar on those two words and still not have scratched the surface enough. So let's just go super high level, 30,000 foot view. Talk a little bit about what workflows or systems, you know, and actually a workflow is a subset of a system because you need to have a system to deliver great client experience. But what are some of the workflows that you've seen, some examples, just to have people clarify in their mind like, well, what does that actually look like? Because you want to, you know, what would be one of the steps to go to start scaling beyond seven figures into eight

figures in annuity production? Oh, well, that means you must. And then here's the system. Well, the workflow is now the bullet point one, two, three, four, five. But the main thing to keep in mind is while maintaining a high client experience. So talk a little bit about what that would look like. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the workflow could vary by office. And I've seen it in different firms and some of our, some of our most successful firms that have a very repeatable process. And, you know, and basically, the client knows exactly what they're going to get in the first 30 days, the first 60 days, the first 90 days. That's the whole onboarding process. And the client, service model, right? So, you know, ultimately you have to, they understand, hey, when I show up,

I'm going to have, I'm going to take a quiz regarding my, you know, financial situation. They're going to understand their risk tolerance. They're going to go through tax clarity. You know, certain programs that they understand, hey, within the first 30 days, this is what you're going to do with my firm. So the client already has an expectation of what they're going to do in the first 30 days, the next 60 days and the next 90 days. And a lot of that is, hey, I'm going to go through tax clarity. I'm to go through some income questions so they understand what my risk tolerance is. You know, we're going to understand what my objectives are, my goals and objectives. All those things are pretty common in many offices as far as goals and objectives of what they are.

But what you do with those in that process and your appointment process, you know, I've got two firms right at the top of my head that I work with where they don't do anything for at least six appointments. Mike, you know, they go through a whole six appointment process because they've got tax issues, they've got estate planning issues, they've got questions on, you know, what their suitability is from, you know, what their objectives are financially. Like, they want to know what their risk tolerance are. You know, so they want to outlay all those different processes. And they, and they understand the client knows, hey, in your first 30 days, this is what we're going to ask from you. And this is the information that we're going to need from you in order to get it.

And that seems to be, it resonates, because obviously these firms are tremendous and they're bringing on a lot of assets in the industry today. But, you know, know, it works for the particular clients that they're going after because they have a reasonable expectation of what they're supposed to do in those first 36, 90 days. Yeah. And then I would even say this, probably working with the advisor and you guiding them along that process and go on, let's talk about some systems and some SOPs and some all of that. And then it's kind of like, I would suspect, like an advisor that says to a client, here's your retirement plan, come see me in 20 years and let's cross our fingers.

and hope it worked out, no, we meet quarterly or every six months or once a year minimum to double check. So what you just described there with this process and foundation and operational systems, it needs to be constantly like almost bubbling in the back of your mind like, okay, was this process working good? Was there any glitch that I could have made it any better? Should I tweak anything? But it needs to be constantly updated, right, to make sure it's working at the level you

want it to. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more for sure. So let's talk a little bit about at what point an advisor needs to start thinking about shifting from being the one. The primary driver, the rainmaker,

the breadwinner, bringing everything in to building some type of a team, whether it's virtual, in person, whatever the case is. Because if you are a bottleneck, you start impeding process, progress. And secondly, if one day down the road, maybe you want to maybe step out, whatever that looks like, total sell the practice, or just go, you know what, one day retirement to me looks like working a half a day a week.

At some point, you need to not be that person. When does that shift happen? I think that shift, Mike, happens exactly with the term that you just used. It happens once you realize that you are the bottom leg. You know, you're the reason that business is starting to slow. slow down. You know, so, you know, and by the way, if business slows down, Mike, because you take time off, you don't really own a business, right? At that point, you don't own a business. You, you know, so you have to kind of look at your, you know, what you're doing with

your business. If you, if you're the bottleneck and you're the problem and you take a day off or you decide to go on vacation with your family and, again, everything that you're supposed to do, right, by the way. If you do that and everything changes and everything stops, and everything slows down, then you just have a job. You don't actually have a business. So what are you trying to build first and foremost? So, you know, that's why I think hiring people, hiring that operational support, that's going to allow you to do the things that you do well, which, you know, when we talk to our advisors,

what's the one thing that they want to do on a daily basis? They want to drive revenue. They want to do revenue generating activity. You know, so if you want to scale your business and you want to grow, real scale, that's not going to begin until your income is really not tied directly to everything you do in the industry. Yeah. In the business. You know, it makes me think of something too.

I'll bet you that if we pulled on a random 10 advisors that you work with and said, hey, is this an accurate statement? Don't your advisors tell their clients, hey, in retirement, you should be able to do all of these fun things. but don't wait until then to start doing those fun things because who knows something could come up your health could be depleted so start doing some of those fun things now because you know we've heard the no-go and the go-go years all of that but isn't it the same mentality that you would train your advisors looking to scale yeah one day it would be nice to work a half a day a week and have a team doing all that but don't wait until age whatever to just do that start putting some of those processes is in places now at whatever age you're at because you just never know the timing. I got an article. This is a great segue, Mike. I received an article today.

I've got a brother who's in the industry. And he shared an article with me this morning that talked a lot about, you know, the issues that advisors have as you continue to grow and why they fail. And the reason that advisors are failing is because it's not that they fail. It's that they flatten. And it kind of ties us into the same conversation. we're having right now for advisors to want to scale. How do I scale? Well, the problem that becomes with advisors is it's not that again, it's not it's not it's not failure. It's you flat.

You know, so if you're early on in your, if you're early on in your career, you're early on in your business and, you know, there should be one thing that you're focusing on. That's recruiting, going to find, you know, more more clients. And that and guess what? That's what you do because that's the lifeblood of your business. You're spending all your time recruiting because if you're in the early stages of it, you're going to be spending your time growing. And sorry, I was trying to pull up the article while we were having this conversation because there was a couple really good things in there that I saw this morning. But the other part of it, it's like, you know, if you, if you're already building and you feel that you've built it enough, then you need to make sure that you're

focused on something else. And that's called client service, right? You know what I mean? So if you've gotten your business to where you wanted to be, you need to make sure that you've got excellent and the best client service and your attention is there. And at the other flip side to it, like you said, if you're scaling and you're at the end and you're like, hey, I don't buy something that's sellable. Well, if you're nearing retirement and that's what you're, and that's what you're choosing to do or that's what you're looking for, then you've got to be prepared now to transition your business to others. So those three different phases that you have to look at is where you are at a business. And then if you're looking at why it's flattened, then let's try to solve those problems

of why it's flattening, why it's plateau. Why did we get to that position? That's what it is. If your calendar is full, but you're not growing, then your business has 100% plateaued, Mike. And you might be the bottleneck. And so here's what I would think that sometimes it's like the frog in the water, it slowly gets turned up and you don't realize you're getting boiled. But at some point, that red flag should come up where you're like, I am back-to-back appointments all day long. And year every year, quarter over quarter, we're just doing the same. At some point, you need to realize that is a problem. So let's go ahead and find someone that can take things off of my plate because I shouldn't be touching this part, this part, this part.

So talk a little bit about, I think, a fear that some advisors would have hiring before you can afford to. Absolutely. I mean, you know, and I don't think it, I look at it as you can't afford not to, right? So, you know, and ultimately that is, yeah, some people, they hire individuals thinking it's going to automatically help them experience. man, but again, hiring people that have proper roles. I mean, they have to be, you have to be able to bring people on. And we definitely help advisors with us and have conversations on that because you don't, you're going to make mistakes.

If you haven't hired before, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to probably bring someone on, you probably shouldn't have. You know, the old cliche, you know, the old saying out there is when is the time to fire buddy? And it's fire somebody. And it's probably the time you first felt it. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's the time to get rid of that individual.

but nobody wants to bring people on to get rid of people. We're obviously doing it to scale. So making sure you bring people, you want to hire the people on to bring them on there to do the things that you don't do well, right? So focus on those things. Again, if I want to focus on revenue generating activities, I want to focus on seeing clients, I want to think, I want to focus on being on stage, educating clients and prospects.

You know, if that's what you want to focus on, then you have to bring people on that are going to do all of those other things that you don't want to do on a day. basis, but not just do them, but do them well. They do them to the expectation that you have so you don't have issues going forward. Yep, perfect. And, you know, the only way really to know, like that red flag we mentioned, like, oh, your calendar is so full, but your production is not moving that much.

Or you go home beat and you're like, man, something has to change. Maybe one thing that you should do is have yourself or an assistant or an AI tool just literally document throughout the day. here's what you did on an hourly basis. Like if you look back over one week and we're like, okay, here's what I did every hour for the last five days for the work week. What things should I have not touched? And I mentioned AI tool, but there's some tools out there that you just set this

tool down just next to you or it's a pen or you just turn it on and it just listens all day long and then it'll categorize and it'll just tell you, oh, well, all day long you did the following or whatever the case is. what are the things you should not have done, then that tells you where you should hire. So I think there's a lot of tips that way, but that's one of the ways that you can help an advisor to really get lean so that they create that capacity for the increase in their scaling. Yeah, and I'll just make one more point on that. And I think that one of the biggest issues that advisors have in our industry as far as hiring process is they don't want to give up control, right? And what we want advisors to, what we want advisors to understand is delegation isn't about losing control, right?

It's about increasing and gaining capacity. So, you know, the highest and best producers in our industry, to your point, what you just mentioned, they protect their time aggressively. They focus on doing the things that they want to be doing that are generating revenue. But helping advisors understand that just because you're delegating, it doesn't mean you're giving up control. It's still your baby. And guess what? it's kind of like the old saying, you know, if you ask 10 people their opinion about a certain topic, you'll get 14 answers. Well, just ask 10 people.

Yeah, but they're going to change. There's always, always, always something that if you were to delegate to an assistant, they're going to do it. Maybe the same, you know, way you would, maybe a little differently, but the outcome should be still a happy customer and you need to allow them to have that autonomy. And the only way to do that is to dip your toe in the water, then dip your foot in the water, then put your, you know, whole leg in. And then now all of a sudden it's like, okay, that's cool. It's getting done. I'm not getting complaints. You know, we're working on client experience, all of that.

But it just, you just got to get started. So let's, let's think about this when we're thinking about scaling to eight figure annuity production. What separates advisors who think I'm just going to go the easy route and just buy a bunch of leads? So what separates an advisor that buys leads to those that attracts clients because they're positioned as the expert? Oh, I, I love that question. and I love these conversations that I have with advisors on both ends of the spectrum.

And again, there's nothing wrong with purchasing leads and going out there. I mean, it's an opportunity to create volume. And that's what I'll tell you exactly what purchasing leads does. Purchasing leads just creates volume, okay? When you are positioned as an expert, that's when your authority, and I know you love that term, Mike. but that's when your authority starts to create more attraction. So when you're positioned as, say, a retirement income specialist through workshops and content or media exposure, all those things, people are approaching you.

And they already trust you. You've already established the trust. So what that does is that dramatically shortens the whole process, right? You know what I mean? So instead of having to convince individuals, you basically just confirm to them what they might already know. So when I look at the difference of that, I think the biggest thing is authority creates attraction and leads. They just, they may create volume. And again, like you said, nothing wrong with the leads. But if you indoctrinate and educate those leads on the authority

you have been building, now that's the perfect combination. So authority can, you know, we can talk for hours and hours on that one alone. But many times authority is what you look like online, social media, website, all of that, but also it comes through in your words and your messaging in an email on your website and on the Zoom conversations or the in-person conversations. When you can come through with the heart of a teacher and educate and speak with expertise and authority and confidence, because guess what? Competence breeds confidence. So when you're competent about what you're doing because of your experience, it breeds

confidence. And when you are confident, you then are recognized as more of an authoritative, but you got to do it in the right way because you got to make sure you're talking about the right things to benefit that client. And it's not just one thing. And that's the beautiful thing about, you know, oh, well, AI is going to steal my job. No, because AI is a tool. It's a subset of a subset of a subset, that human touch where you listen and understand and ask the right questions and have empathy and teaching, all of that culminates into a relationship. And yes, you can call it expertise and authority and confidence and all of that, but it really gets down to caring about someone and developing that relationship. Would that be an accurate

assessment? Oh, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I think having brand equity like that, it helps you compound your business, just like, you know, just like your assets, right? So, I mean, ultimately for me, you know, an example, I mean, obviously if you're, if you're known as, if you, if someone looks at you say, hey, this guy's known as tax-efficient retirement income, you know what I mean, for business owners or whatever it is, I'm just pulling out a niche there. But, you know, if someone says, hey, I'm known as being known for tax-efficient retirement income for business owners, that is so much more powerful of a message than just generic retirement messaging, right? You know,

simple stuff that you just do every, so all this specific positioning like that and having that authority and brand authority, that's just going to allow you to do one thing more than others. And that's attract higher quality people, you know, so. The clearer that is than the stronger, you know, the clearer that is, the stronger the, I don't know what term I'm looking here for, but the stronger. The outcome. You know, I'm going to even go, I'm going to go even one step further. Tax efficient retirement income for physicians.

Tax efficient retirement income for engineers. So if you can take that narrowing and go, ooh, I'm going to become the expert in, whatever, in your example, tax efficient retirement income, but really become that expert. for a specific vertical category demographic like, you know, high affluent, you know, physicians who own their own practice or whatever the case is. Now it's like, okay, hold up. Yes, I can work with anybody because a retirement plan can work for anybody. But when I become the expert in this outcome for this demographic, man, six, nine,

12 months down the road, word gets around. We could go, you know, really down that path. But I really like that specificity you mentioned there. And so let's wrap up with this, Jeremy. If someone is listening to this thinking, hey, eight figure annuity production with operations and systems, if they come to you, what is one of the first steps that you would take to help guide them on that path and get launched that way? Well, I mean, we have a little bit of an interview process just to vet the advisors that we're working with to have those conversations. And ultimately, it's just learning like what are your objectives? Like, what do you want to do?

How do you want to build your brand? If you're not building your brand, you know, how do you want to build your brand? what because in all reality, I don't really want to work with an advisor. I shouldn't say I don't want to work with a guy. It sounds doesn't sound very nice to make that kind of Mike. But ultimately to me, it's like where I feel like our systems and our process are going to benefit people is you want a brand and you want to build a you're trying to grow your company.

You're trying to build your brand. You're not just chasing the simple lead systems. You know, everybody's got all that stuff. You know, what we want to differentiate ourselves from from the other guys. we want to help people build out and grow their brand. We want to help create that authority that they need so they can start creating some attraction to people. You know, so simple, simple, you know, Q&A through some process we go through.

And, you know, ultimately to me, like, we want to do this. We are the IMO that is going to be invested in your future. And we, we know that that partnership is going to help us sustain, you know, the growth that we want to do. But it's also going to put you on the path that you want to create, you know, to create those better opportunities for you to do, spend more time with your families, but yet get your business on autopilot. How do I do that and have success? And we definitely feel like we can help of that. Absolutely. Everybody wins in that situation. You got it. Well, if someone is interested in

taking a peek at that path, what's the best way they can learn more and reach out and connect with you? Yeah, I definitely would go to our website, Mike, and that's www.mpe.m.m. p.s. That's Matt Paul, Sam, so EmpireMPS.com. Check out our website. You can get some information on me, a little bit on our programs. You will have access to, obviously, you get, being the president of that company, Mike, you get direct access to me, the decision maker. So love that being the small boutique field that we have is you're always going to get Jeremy. And, you know, we're going to be able to have a conversation to talk about what we think is going to be beneficial for you once we learn a little bit more about what makes you awesome. So, and if you're

not where you want to be. I promise you we're going to put opportunities in front of you that can help. If not, I think we'll enjoy the conversation anyways. Perfect. Well, Jeremy, thank you so much for coming back on. It's been a real pleasure chatting with you. It's always great to talk to you, Mike. And again, I appreciate you having me, as always.

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