Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Paul Castner w/ C & K Healthcare Advisors-Why Top Agents Choose C & K Healthcare Advisors for Senior Market Success

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

Paul Castner is President and Co-Founder of C & K Healthcare Advisors, one of the insurance industry’s most innovative agent-focused organizations. With extensive experience at top Medicare carriers and a passion for helping seniors navigate healthcare costs, Paul has revolutionized how insurance professionals serve their clients. Under his leadership, C & K Healthcare Advisors has grown from a regional operation to a nationally recognized organization known for its cutting-edge technology, comprehensive training systems, and unwavering commitment to agent success. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Paul continues to mentor agents while building the future of insurance services. His first book is set to launch on Amazon in the next few weeks.Learn more: http://www.ckhealthcareadvisors.com/Plans and products may not be available in all areas. Certain exclusions and limitations may apply.Our Website serves as an educational invitation for you, the customer, to inquire about further information regarding your health insurance options, and submission of your contact information constitutes as permission for a Licensed Insurance Representative to contact you with further information, including complete details on cost and coverage of this insurance. Contact will be made by a licensed insurance agent/producer or insurance company.We do not offer every plan available in your area. Any information we provide is limited to those plans we do offer in your area. This is a solicitation for Insurance.C & K Healthcare Advisors, LLC and their agents are licensed and certified representatives of a Health and Life Insurance organization. Enrollment in any plan depends on contract renewal.Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-paul-castner-w-c-k-healthcare-advisors-why-top-agents-choose-c-k-healthcare-advisors-for-senior-market-success

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 with us, Paul Kastner, who's president and co-founder of C&K Healthcare Advisors, and we'll be talking about why top agents choose C&K Healthcare Advisors. for senior market success. Paul, welcome to the program. Hey, Mike, thanks.

I'm glad to be here today. Hey, I'm looking forward to talking with you because I'm always looking for people that are on the cutting edge in their industry and that's where you are. So let's go just dive right in. You are working with advisors helping them to take their business to the next level. And I know that a lot of agents across the country are looking for their applying partners to support them. What makes C&K Healthcare advisors different from us?

other options they have, maybe other agencies they can join or IMOs in the senior market. So, Mike, that's a great question. I appreciate it. So really where we want to start with is we're different when it comes down to agents because we look at it as an agent partnership. And the agent partnership difference, we define that as we're not just another IMO or FMO. We're your business partner invested in your long-term success. While other agencies out there in the market or recruiting numbers, we focus on agent profitability and sustainability. Our proven and predictable and profitable systems isn't just marketing. It is our commitment to every agent that joins our organization. And as I've shared in the past on Fox 47, we're

dedicated to guiding not just seniors, but the agents who serve them. Now, agents tell me all the time about what they're missing, what they're missing from the agencies they're currently working with. And the big topics are real training is number one. not just product dumps, but comprehensive business building education. Second big thing, ongoing support, not disappearing after contracting, but continuous mentorship. Finally, you know, they always talk about leads. Quality leads, not overpriced, not low quality, but we have proven marketing systems that help guide those agents to bring in quality leads. And we top that off with our technology, not outdated systems, but we have a cutting edge tool that we call Lifeline Cs.

RM that is proprietary, and we give that to our agents at no cost. Now, agents in the senior market have an advantage, Mike. 10,000 Americans turn 65 daily, guaranteed growth market for over the next 20 years. And seniors have the highest need in searching for quality guidance. Long-term relationships create sustainability, reoccurring and reoccurring revenue streams. Our agents who specialize in Citi and market constantly outperform people in the general market. When it comes down to our training that I mentioned, we have a technology-based training system that we completely designed and overhauled, and our agents and advisors can access that 24-7, you know, with Medicare regulations in mind and Social Security strategies. I also have a Social Security licensed book out there. It provides credibility and expertise, and that our agents can also use building them credibility and expertise in the market. We do a lot of what's called NEPQ training.

It stands for neurological, emotional, persuasional questioning. We based that off of Jeremy Miner's methodology, but we really brought it in and gave it that C&K flavor and touch. It's great for consulting, like changing how you question and hold those conversations to build trust. And then we do some advanced sales trainings on top of that. But I also, again, I'm inspired by guys. And I was inspired by Jordan Belfort's straight line selling book. But we made sure that it was ethical and had effective results in it. So it sounds to me kind of with all of the training and the CRMs and things like that, it's like a business and a box.

So, you know, when you're asked what sets your part from, you know, other agencies, I'll bet you that other agencies or IMOs would say, hey, here's this one thing and scattered a bit of benefits. Sounds to me like this is a sequential business in a box that takes you from, you know, getting started to success in no time. Yeah. And one thing I'd like to throw out there too, Mike, with this question is we don't look for. just agents already, people holding a licensure. If you're somebody out there looking for a career change, if you're considering that career change into the insurance market, especially the senior market, it offers the most stable and rewarding entry point of any other job out there. Seniors actually value expertise and relationships over high pressure sales tactics.

We provide you with substantial discounts to be able to help pre-licensing and everything else and all of our training going along, we give you the right footing and the right pathway to start that career. So we encourage people that might be out there not licensed yet, looking for that career change to consider, you know, working in the insurance field. It's one of the fastest growing and substantial and sustainable markets that are out there. You know, I think that a lot of times people might hear about, you know, oh, Medicare, there's a lot of change and it's confusing or it's a lot to learn. are you guys doing at C&K Healthcare Advisors to make sure that your team of agents stay current,

but also compliant so that they can make sure that they're providing the best value to their clients? So we don't just throw our agents into the Medicare season. We help build their expertise year round. Like I said, we do concert and comprehensive training on original Medicare, Medicare Advantage and Medicare supplements. We're really big into understanding the current year's premiums and deductibles. and we really help break down that couple hundred page M. CMS MCMG stands for Medicare marketing guidelines because most agents don't have the time or the ability to crunch 400 and some plus pages down.

So we've helped summarize that down into a few pieces. So that way any of their marketing or presentations out there, they're staying compliant. But more importantly, you know, we help agents learn how to simplify complex information to simple solutions for seniors. Again, going on with our ongoing education and support, you know, our technology-based training modules, we update those every year for regulatory change. We have a team meeting every other week where we use the first half of that meeting as a live training session. We bring on carrier representatives. Some of those carriers, you guys all know by name. Compliance and support, we have teams that work on the compliance.

So if you've got marketing pieces or, you know, you got dinged on an infraction, We have a compliance team that will help you, make sure that you're always staying in compliance, and you always have access to Medicare experts any time that you need them to get answers immediately. So we use an open Slack channel, and all my agents are in that Slack channel. So if you're out in the field and you get hit with a question you've never had happened, and no book has ever taught you it because, you know, life throws out of so many different scenarios, you can jump on that Slack channel really quick, fire that question in there, And somebody is going to answer you, whether that's myself or another agent on the team that's been there and done that, you know, maybe they've had that situation pop up.

We actually act as a team. A lot of agencies breed this, you know, team mentality, pull them together together for a team call, fire them up, you know, ura, ura, and then when they break their individuals. Here, we act and function as a team. Everybody helps everybody support each other and lift them up. You know, I want to go just a little bit deeper on that team because I feel like that could be just a little buzzword or a cliche that a lot of people say, oh, yeah, yeah, we're a team. But then it's every man for himself and I'm not going to give you the goodies because I want to do better than you. Talk a little bit or give an example how that team really helps to support your growth as an agent to make more sales and success. Sir, I love that question, by the way, Mike.

So I'll give you a little background on me. I spent over a decade coaching Pee Wee Sports when my son was little. I continued to coach Peewee Sports. I, again, I breed that team mentality. It goes back to those roots, right? So like I said, I've had a couple agents. As a matter of fact, I won't name any names, but I can think of a situation two annual enrollment periods ago.

Agents in a house, very complicated question. Nobody was sure how to answer that. But one of my senior agents happened to hear his phone go off. He was going in between appointments, and this guy had been there, done that. He spent 20 plus years in the Medicare realm, and we was able to help that person. If we didn't jump in and act as a team to support that person and really get them over the hump and be able to help that senior's complex situation, that sale would have been a wash. So what sets us apart agent-wise, you know, we don't just sell policies, okay?

Our agents provide strategic guidance. You know, seniors, again, they prefer local trusted advisors over call center reps. And, you know, our training plays a lot into credit with that because we teach consultive concert and conversations, not sales presentations. Long-term relationships provide higher lifetime value and also increases your referral rate. Yep. You know, you mentioned Social Security, and I feel like Medicare content or questions or needs and Social Security go hand in hand.

So talk a little bit about optimizing the deliverables that you provide to your clients when working with them as Medicare agents, knowing that their clients are going to need security questions or estate planning, those kind of things. How do you provide really sophisticated knowledge to them to make those agents look like and come off that as that trusted advisor versus just another salesperson? Sure. So we transform our agents from product sellers into strategic advisors, okay? Again, going back, seniors don't buy from salespeople. They work with trusted professionals. They respect. So we do a lot of training when it comes down to Social Security, especially Social Security entitlement,

okay? When is the right time to draw my Social Security? Okay, do it, you know, I'm still working. Should I engage my Medicare or should I wait? You know, things along those lines, they become important questions. when you're giving that out, okay? Integrating not only Medicare and Social Security, but you also have to talk about a little bit about wealth transfer.

These people have, you know, 401Ks or 403Bs, and really understanding tax implications and coordinating with other professionals bring us into the forefront when we're helping make those strategies happen. You know, we position our don't file until you have a strategy when you come down into becoming that Social Security and I want to say expert, but we know that that comes with some letters behind your name.

But estate planning also plays into that conversation. It helps preserve family wealth across generations. Coordinating with people's attorneys and accountants as part of the professional team, because of very important as well, because you don't know who you're dealing with. Were they a business owner? Are they affluent? Maybe they have a team of advisors already. And we always pitch that we're not trying to replace them.

We don't want to replace them. We want to join that person's team and work collaboratively with that other team to be able to make sure we're doing what's in the best interest of that client. Most agencies out there focus on product training. We focus on business building. Other IMOs provide leads. We teach our agents how to generate their own leads and their own referrals. Competitors offer a basic CRM. We provide comprehensive business management tools that allow you to position yourself out there.

And we have several pre-recorded webinars that they can use, particularly about Social Security and when the right time to file entitlement that goes through everything from start to finish. And again, you know, that gives us that little bit of an edge. For experienced agents out there, I tell them all the time, if your current upline only contacts you during enrollment periods, you're missing the relationship building opportunities that create sustainable income and they should come see us. And that can be highlighted in my book that's out on Amazon. It's called Elite Advantage Blueprint for Agent Success. You know, what you just described there gives me kind of like a mental picture of like a contrast between just some rate quota, you know, just some agent that's just, you know, setting up the Medicare clients quoting them this, getting them in, out and just churning them through versus someone that's taking that caring, empathetic, teaching approach. So how do you help your agents shift their mindset from just quoting products to having a holistic values-based conversation with these clients? A lot of that comes down to,

you know, our training and advanced product integration, Mike. You know, we're just not that one-trick pony when, you know, me and my partner who founded C&K, we took a look at, you know, when we meet somebody, we want to look at the whole picture, not just what's in front of us. right now, right? And a lot of that comes down with personal, you know, professional development, you know, presentation skills, educational seminars and workshops, how they're interacting in the community, you know, networking strategies with other professionals in the community. I am constantly learning. Every day I'm still learning something. You know, you would think in your mid-40s that, hey, you know, school's done. I don't have to learn anymore. But that's so far from the truth. You know,

And as far as career defining, you know, we go into different segments depending on the product line. Okay. When it comes down to like experienced agents and things that we teach, you know, stop settling for basic product training. When you become the one building expertise, it sets you apart in the market. Your experience is valuable. We'll help you leverage that and teach you how to grow it for greater success. Okay. Our systems, like I said, our CRM Lifeline, Lifeline's constantly being updated and integrated with new tools and better ways of communicating. We know that we're getting more into that tech savvy era of seniors, right? It's not just the, hey, drop things in the mail anymore. They're reading things. They're doing research on the internet.

You know, COVID changed a lot of that. It changed the way seniors shopped at that point in time. Our seniors were used to walking into a store, right, and doing everything. thing manually. Now they're shopping on Amazon. Once they got a taste of shopping on Amazon, what else were they going to play with? You know, it's funny when you look at habits of the seniors, you know, how many seniors are actually on TikTok? I know that sounds like a young man's, you know, social media platform, but they're out there. And you can, you can advertise to them on there. And I get, I tell people that all the time. They're like, ah, they're not on there. Oh, absolutely they are. Because I've talked to people that are in their 60, 70s,

80s and my family and that heck they're sharing videos to me yep yep that you know it don't just think oh well I don't do it so no one else does you know you've got to go where the people are and that's a really really great point um let's kind of wrap up with this thought Paul what kind of agent thrives most in your system what would you say to someone that's skeptical because they've been burned by certain opportunities before like oh well I used to do this with this organization I've been burned. So for agents considering joining C&K, what would you say would make this, the career defining partnership they've been looking for? And I love that you talk about the word partnership, not just some, let's bounce here, try it for a minute, and then bounce off if I don't see something.

I'm like, what would you say to someone to go, here's why you should be all in with both feet and make this a long-term partnership? So honestly, we're selective over agents that we bring into our partnership, okay? We want agents that want to do best for their clients, first and foremost. If you're just one of those agents that all you care about is your commission, you're probably not the right fit for us, okay? We are client first, what product fits that client best, and then worry about your commission. But anybody who fits that bill, we'll take on, we'll help teach you, we'll help bring up those pieces that may have been missing in the past. We might help you elevate things that you didn't never realize that you had inside of you.

So different personalities, we can't even say, hey, you got to be an extrovert because you got to be good at sales. Well, every job is a sale. I don't care what job that you're doing out there. Even if you're somebody that sits behind a desk crunch of numbers all day, when you go for a promotion or you want a pay raise, you got to sell yourself. So we can help teach that. To learn a little bit more about what we look for, you can visit our website,

www. CKHealthcareAdvisors.com. There is a piece at the top that says agent resources. There are multiple pages under those agent resources. You'll be able to find out tons of information of what we're looking for, but we have a very unique program for agents that might be getting towards the end of their career,

and we know most agents sell their vocal business off at pennies on the dollar. Well, not here. I'm not going to tell, I'm not going to give it to them. But they can go to the website and check out how that program works. Just know that they can hang, on there. And again, one of the big things I want to give a shout out to is everything that we've

discussed about, about building successful senior service practices is detailed in my book at Lead Advantage Blueprint for Agent Success. It's launched out on Amazon. Don't wait for the book to take action. America's seniors actually need advocates like you right now. And we need agents who are committed to excellence. I love it. Well, Paul, it's been a real pleasure chatting with you. I love the energy you bring. I love the support you bring it to help your agent succeed. So thank you so much for coming on. Thanks, Mike. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.com.