Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Tom Hegna, Author, Speaker, Economist, and Retirement Income Expert

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

Tom Hegna CLU, ChFC, CASL, is an author, speaker, and economist. He has been an incredibly popular industry speaker for many years and is considered by many to be THE Retirement Income Expert!As a former Senior Executive Officer at New York Life, retired Lieutenant Colonel, and economist, Tom has delivered over 5,000 seminars, helping Baby Boomers and seniors retire the “optimal” way. He has condensed a large chunk of his considerable knowledge into five of his books:Paychecks and Playchecks: Retirement Solutions for Life, which is in the top 1% of any book ever sold.Retirement Income Masters: Secrets of the Pros that compiles the very best practices from the top retirement experts in the country.Paycheques and Playcheques, Retirement Solutions for Canadians.Don’t Worry, Retire Happy! Seven Steps to Retirement Security, which is based on his popular Public Television Special that has played in over 80 million homes in the US and Canada.And most recently: Don’t Worry, Retire Happy! Seven Steps to Retirement Security for Canadians.Tom specializes in creating simple and powerful retirement solutions based on math and science – not opinions. He has the unique ability to pump up a crowd, make people laugh, and solve complex financial problems using easy-to-understand words, ideas, and stories. He is available to speak to businesses, government organizations, professional associations, financial professionals, and their clients all across the globe.Learn more: https://tomhegna.com/webinarsInfluential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-tom-hegna-author-speaker-economist-and-retirement-income-expert

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 Tom Hegna, who's an author, speaker economist, and retirement income expert. Tom, welcome to the program. Thanks, Mike. Great to be with you.

Thank you for being here. You are such an icon in the industry. I follow your work and love what you're doing to help educate the public. And I think that's the big, huge thing that we want to talk about today is there is so much misinformation out there. So I want to dive into what you do and how you do it. But get us started with a little bit of your background. What's your story and how did you get into financial services in the first place? So I'm originally from a small town of Minnesota, went to college at North Dakota State University on an Army ROTC scholarship. I was commissioned. in the military. I spent six years active duty army, served in Germany, down at Fort Huachuca twice, Ford, or California. I was a company commander. Stayed in the Army Reserves and retired as a lieutenant colonel in 2006. I left the Army to go to work for MetLife for eight years. I was an agent, a manager, a national marketing manager for their variable life product. Then I went over to New York Life. I spent 15 years at New York Life started out as an annuity wholesaler and worked my way up to be a senior executive officer in the company. I retired from New York Life in 2011. And since then, I've written

now six books. My six book is just coming out right now. Five of them on retirement. This newest one is for Generation X, Y, Z, Millennials on how to become, you know, a millionaire, how to become wealthy. But most of my books are on baby boomers to show them how to retire the optimal way. I had a PBS TV special, don't worry, retire happy that played in 80 million homes in the U.S. and Canada. I've spoken all over the that trained over 300,000 financial advisors. I've given over 5,000 live seminars in all 50 states. So that's kind of my story. And I'm mostly retired now.

So I'm 75. I'm not just talking to talk. I'm walking to walk. Yeah, that's such a pedigree. And what you're doing is you're giving back now to the industry because advisors that need to cut through the clutter of all of the misinformation out there, you're able to be that beacon of teaching out there that they can even point to and use some of your content to help educate their prospects and their clients. So talk a little bit about how you're doing

that to help advisors perfect their craft. Yeah. So, you know, when I was at New York Life, New York Life was about 10 years ahead of the rest of the industry on retirement income. They were doing a big retirement income push 10 years before everybody else. And so I had, and I was kind of in charge of pushing that. And, you know, to take advisors who were selling variable annuities, which were the hot product in the 80s and 90s, and now to show them how to sell speas and Dias, you know, they were kind of boring products, but, but when I dug in and I read the research of Dr. David Bavill, Dr. Moshe Malavsky, Dr. Michael Finca, Dr. Wade Fowd, you know, Nobel Prize winner, Dr. William Sharp and Dr. Robert C. Merton. Well, what I found is most people don't read these

academic white papers, but they're loaded with gold. Things like mortality credits, things like, you know, longevity is not just a risk, it's a risk multiplier. And I took all of these things out of the white papers and put them into simple English so people could understand that there is a formula that if you follow this formula, you will have an optimal retirement. I can't tell anybody they're going to have the best retirement because nobody knows what's going to be the best. And so what math and science does when there's multiple options, it looks for the optimal. And the optimal simply means this is your best chance of having the best solution and it'll never be the worst. So that's optimal.

And so what I've created through all these white papers is a formula to have an optimal retirement. You know, and I love what you said there with. You went back to like some of the, all these names and those researchers and you cold of that down into simple English, but tip of the hat to validating it from research. Because I think that people want to understand it in plain English, but then they also want to kind of check in their mind subconsciously that this is legit because. And when you can bring out some of those things with this researcher who said in this white paper or this case study, but then you explain it in simple.

English or maybe in a story format, they can accept that that much easier. And I think that's huge because sometimes ideas can come off as like, oh, this is just different and new. And I don't know whether I can trust it. Well, you can because it was researched here and validated there. Yeah. And, you know, it's all based in math and science. And that's what I do. These aren't my opinions. I don't have an agenda. I don't sell annuities. I don't sell life insurance. I don't sell long-term care insurance. I don't sell any financial products. So when I'm talking with, with, you know, somebody's clients or prospects, I'm just sharing with them the top research of the top PhDs in the world. I'm not trying to sell them anything. And that's what I tell advisors all the time.

See, an advisor has a conflict of interest with the client because if the client buys, the advisor gets paid. If the client doesn't buy, the advisor doesn't get paid. The client knows that. They know that. We know that. Everybody knows that. But see, I don't get paid whether they buy or not. Dr. David Babel doesn't get paid whether they buy or not. Forbes magazine, Wall Street, Journal, Dr. Michael Finkin, none of us get paid whether the client buys or not. So our information is worth more than your information because you get paid if they buy or not. And so that's what I always try to tell advisors is you can't, if somebody hates annuities, you can't change their mind. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. You can't do it, but I can.

Dr. David Babel can, Forbes Magazine, Wall Street Journal. You've got to put lots of third party disinterested third party research in front of the person, that will change their mind. You know, I agree with that 1,000 percent. And then when you can tie that into a combination of an advisor using that validated third party research along with being seen as that trustworthy, credible advisor or firm themselves, because you can't be a newbie with an AOL email address and point to these things and be successful as much as you can with someone that goes, ooh, I respect this person because they've been, you know, in the industry this long and I trust what they've written. And now they're pointing to these things.

So it's not just one thing. It's just not some formula, but it's a piece of a formula. And I think that just makes so much sense out there. Yeah. And I always use slides to help me make a presentation. And my slides are available to advisors. And I just think these disinterested third party articles, when the Wall Street Journal has a headline, secret to a happy retirement is friends, neighbors, and a fixed annuity. Why would an advisor not carry that with

them? When there's a white paper out there from Ernst & Young that shows that the optimal portfolio in retirement has about 40% investments, 30% cash value life insurance, and 30% annuities, why would an advisor not want to show the number one accounting firm in the world did a white paper and here's what they found? You know, Forbes magazine said, you should consider replacing some of your bonds with annuities. Why wouldn't you carry that? I mean, I, I, I, I just, just don't understand why more advisors are not using these third-party articles. And those are the kinds of things I put into the slides that I use in my presentations. You know, you mentioned a second ago longevity. And that's like a word and a concept that we can spend days on in and of itself.

But talk a little bit about what you're saying right here is like a fresh new approach to providing solutions to problems, not selling. So that's another concept that we can say, Let's do a sales seminar on not selling, but just talking and being real and providing solutions to problems. But with respect to some of these products, I feel that the minute you say a word of a product, all of a sudden, people can shut down. When you say annuity, there's preconceived ideas. When you say life insurance, permanent life insurance, there's preconceived ideas.

But what about if you take those approaches like what you're mentioning through these non-interested third parties and bring some research in like, hey, you know, you've seen. stuff about how important sleep is, right? And they're going, this is a financial guy. And it's sleep. What are you talking about? Sleep? Well, yeah, you can sleep better at night when you know you've got guaranteed fixed income. And here's some research that proves that. Let me just talk about a couple potential financial instruments to consider. So talk a little bit about that approach where it gets people thinking in the right direction without a preconceived misconception. Yeah. So what I try to do is say, you know, whether you like annuities or not is really not the point.

The point is the research shows that if you add some annuities to your portfolio, I'm not saying to do it all in annuities. Nobody's ever saying that, a portion. You know, 20 to 40% would be normal. But three things will happen if you do do that to your portfolio. Number one, your portfolio performance will improve. It won't go down. It'll go up.

And the reason is the way that the annuity functions inside of a portfolio, it functions like a AAA rated bond because it's guaranteed. As long as you're breathing, that check is coming. But it's got a triple C rated yield. The payout rate on these things is much higher than what you're, to get from a money market fund or a government bond or, you know, any other type of C.D. Any other type of safe place. And so you're going to be, you're going to do the portfolio will do better.

And it's got zero standard deviation because what happens when interest rates go up, the value of bonds goes down. But when interest rates go up, the value of the annuity does not go down. Okay. It goes up. And so your portfolio will do better, number one. Number two, the research shows you're going to be happier. And I can show you the Wall Street Journal article, Time magazine.

Towers Watson did a whole white paper on happiness and happiness and retirement. And then number three, the research now shows you're going to live longer. So why would somebody be against a product if it's going to improve your portfolio performance? It's going to allow you to be happier and likely to live longer. You can't promise them that they're going to live longer. But the statistics are 100 people who own annuities versus 100 people who don't own annuities. The 100 people that own annuities are going to live longer. There was an article in Journal for Financial Service Professionals.

a couple of years ago, Patrick Tricker, he's an attorney, he wrote the article. And he found that in the United States, a 60-year-old male who purchases a life annuity can expect to live about 20% longer than a 65-year-old male who does not. And so I guess it was a 65-year-old male buys it, has a 20% chance of living longer than a 65-year-old male who does not. Now, that's not saying every 65-year-old male will live longer, but some are going to live a lot longer because they have less stress, they're not worried. And because they're being paid to live, guess what?

Some of them choose to live differently. They watch what they eat, the exercise. They call the doctor or not feeling well. So if something can help your portfolio, help you be happier, help you live longer, why would that be not a good thing? And if you were to phrase that to that potential client and say, so what were your misgivings with this product of an annuity? They probably could not articulate it very clearly. And it's just what they've heard in the past and rumor. And so I think pointing to that research, pointing to those articles,

that just is so massive. And you've mentioned slides. You've mentioned research and articles. And it reminds me of the old saying, what's easy to do is easy not to do. So it's so easy to go, hey, just point to this and use this slide and say this. That's simple.

But it's easy not to do it because you get into that rut and groove of just, you know, pounding it out. So talk a little bit about how advisors can make sure that they implement these types of things that are easy to do when it's not really part of their general approach in day-to-day because it's like, well, if I can just, you know, here's this trifold flyer or here's this, you know, PDF, I'm going to email out. Yeah, but they're not getting it. So what is what is the trigger that you advise your client, the advisors to do to make sure that these things are understood and implemented? Well, you know, people say knowledge is power, but that's not

true. Applied knowledge is power. See, if people don't do things with the knowledge that they get, it does them nothing. And so what I've done is I've tried to create. an entire system. I got a training system called Tom Hagen on demand. I got my slides that people can use for presentations. I've got, you know, I was in the baby boomer dilemma movie. There's advisors all over the country just making bank showing that movie. I mean, 100 people show up and they get appointments with almost everyone. I mean, I've got online webinars that are going seven days a week, 24 hours a day, that advisors can just send people to the link. And I'll teach to client everything. The advisor doesn't have to do it. They can be all playing golf.

and I'll do their work for them. So what I've tried to do is create systems that are so easy and simple for an advisor to put into place that can help them deliver multiple streams of revenue. See, I have multiple streams of revenue coming in. That's how I can be 75% of retired. I play golf four to five days a week. After this, after we record this, I'm going out to play pickleball for two hours. Okay. So I've got streams of income coming in seven days a week, 24 hours a day. And that's what I want advisors to learn. Because if, all they're making money is when they're out face to face in front of a client, that's one source of revenue. But you want to have like three or four or five sources of revenue so that if you're sick or you're on a vacation, that your revenue doesn't go down to zero. Yes. And all of these tools are then things that you can tap into from the intellectual capital

that you've created over the decades and based on research that it's just like smile and point. You know, so I think that's a huge thing. Trust the process. So it reminds me, too, I've heard this in sales presentation so many times that you don't want to get lost in the weeds. You know, you want to sell, you know, the benefits, not the features. And I even like the idea of selling the benefit of the benefit.

So like going in deeper and telling those stories. And the big thing that I love talking about is selling the transformation, not the transportation. So you don't get into the transportation to get to that, you know, wonderful, you know, elite luxury island in the Caribbean. in because you want to talk about what's going to happen when you get there. Not the fact that we're going to fly or take a boat or do whatever. They just want to understand we're going to get you there. So in talking about retirement or providing information about annuities or permanent life insurance, we're not going to get into the weeds of talking about these things yet.

We want to talk about what that's going to do for the client. And like you were saying about living longer potentially and sleeping better and having security. So talk a little bit about bringing those story kind of approaches and not getting into the weeds because even though you have these tools, you don't want to get into the weeds and the details too soon until the client or the prospect is ready. Yeah, I mean, it's really about words, language, questions, and stories. You want to ask a lot of questions. And then you want to share stories, success stories of people who've done things.

And I tell people you can borrow my stories. You know, my second book, Retirement Income Masters, Secrets of the Pros, that goes and looks to 14 different top producers in each chapter's their story. What do they say? How do they explain this? And that's a great resource for advisors. use some of those stories. But I do want to say one thing about the weeds. I see too many advisors who do not fully understand the products they are selling. And that's where you're going to run

into problems. You want to know your product inside and out. What's guaranteed? What's not guaranteed? What happens if this happens? What happens if that happens? How does the index work? What is the cap? How does the cap work? How does the whatever moving parts there are in that? What are the fees? You want to know everything about that product. And I just see too many advisors who do not do their homework on their own products that they're selling. You know, when I got hired by New York Life, I asked them to send me every prospectus of every product they had. And they did. It was in a big box.

And I went through every one of those prospectuses with a yellow highlighter and highlighted anything I didn't fully understand. What's this? What's this? Was this? I show up at the home office. I got a stack of perspectives. I went one by one. Page by page.

What does this mean? What is that? How does this work? Why is that that way? Because if I'm going to represent a line of products, I want to know those products better than anybody else in that company. Now, there were some product experts who were smarter than me, but I'll tell you, I was of anybody in that company, I was probably in the top two or three or four who knew the

details of every product. And so I just think advisors need to understand the details too. They don't have to go through all the details, but they need to be able to answer detailed questions. Because if all you understand is just the basics so that you can tell the, the plain English side of things. Yes, to your point, you're going to get thrown a question and you're going to stumble and bumble and not be perceived as that credible, trustworthy advisor because you don't have the foundation. That's a huge point there, Tom. I love that. So let's talk a little bit about

how advisors can thrive in today's industry. So I feel like, you know, with all of the misinformation online and you need to have that great, you know, content of knowledge for the products that you just mention. How can you stand out offline and online? Because in reality, there's people out there that have a brick and mortar shop and they can go in there and clients can go meet with them. There's people that just work virtually. But number one, you have to stand out. And number two, you have to be a credible trustworthy advisor. What are your thoughts that way? Yeah. So if I was a brand new advice today, I would build up my social media presence as big as possible. If you could get to 2,000, 3,000, 5,000, 10,000 followers. I mean, once you get to a certain level,

probably four or five thousand followers. Guess what? Now you can watch your feed. You know who's had a baby. You know who got married. You know who got engaged. You know who died. You know who just retired.

You know who just got fired. You know everything. And those are all life events. People buy when there are life events. So everybody thinks social media is just about, oh, you got to post stuff. Yes, I would be posting very credible stuff. And if you don't know what to post, follow me and just share my stuff.

Okay? Because my social media strategy is to post things that you should, be posting, okay? So then I want you to share them and like them and all that kind of stuff. But build. So yes, posting is important, but then watching your feed and then calling those people when they have life events and just a nice conversation. Hey, congratulations. I saw you just got engaged. That is so incredible. You know, I work with a lot of people just get engaged. And of course, now you've got to be thinking about life insurance and all these investments and 401 case. And I can help you with that. So I was just thinking I was going to be out in that area

on Wednesday, our mornings or afternoons or evenings better for you. You know, that type of thing. and you just go right into it. You know, when I was at MetLife, we had these little Snoopy bibs. And when somebody had a baby, I would drive to their house. I wouldn't call them and drive to their house. Ring it over, hey, I got this bib for you. They'd love it. And I say, you know, now you've got to be thinking about college education.

You probably got a triple or quadruple your life insurance because now you've got to cover, you know, you've got to provide for your family even longer and more expenses. And so those life events are when people buy. I love it. It makes all the sense of the world. You've got to go where your people are. And we know from statistics and fact that people are online slash social media. And if we know that's where they are, you need to stake that claim yourself and have that position there.

So talk a little bit about building, because I've said this before, you have to be credible before you can be incredible. So with all of this knowledge and all of the work and the research that goes into knowing the products and then making those relationships on social media, what do you advise financial advisors to do to be seen as that credible expert so that then when they deliver these messages or conversations or webinars or things that they're doing that they're like, okay, that connects up its congruent. So I say there are riches and niches. Find your niche. It will make you rich. Now, when you're a brand new advisor, you'll go anywhere for anybody. If they can spell, you know, if they can write a check and spell the name right and put the dollar amount, you're going to go there. But once you're somewhat established, maybe your second,

your third, or fourth, or whenever it is, you want to find an area of expertise where you really know what you're talking about. You know the people. Maybe you came from UPS and you're going to work with UPS drivers. I don't know what your niche, but you're really good at that. Find your niche. It will make you rich. See, my niche is retirement income. Yes, I talk life insurance. Yes, I talk long-term care insurance. Yes, I'm now talking to millennials, but my niche is retirement income. That is where I am considered, you know, to be pretty knowledgeable in the field of retirement income. Well, you want to be known as the expert in a certain area, whether it's working with chiropractors or attorneys or whatever. Find your niche. It will make you rich. And that's,

so that's what I would say. You want to find something where you have commonality with a certain group of people where you really are engaged with them and then then work that and just be the expert in that area. And then post social media things that would interest those types of people that, hey, I found this or you can send them an email. Hey, found this article. I thought you find it very interesting. Provide value. Because the more you provide value, the more they're going to buy from you. But don't ask them to buy all the time, but provide them a lot of value.

And then you can ask every once in a while for a sale. Yes, I love it. It's just spectacular because once you have that niche, and like you mentioned, UPS or if you're, you know, military or whatever the niche would be, you know, you start learning the nuances. You learn the acronyms. You learn the messaging and the words that kind of trigger them. And also it needs to be this constant, never-ending improvement of you keep, you know, like for instance, I myself keep a document on my computer called a message to market. And it's all about my niche.

And every time I hear someone say something, I'm going into that, just tweaking a word or two. And it just keeps you so zoned in on that. And then all of a sudden, you take that old thing that we've heard many times, birds of a feather flock together. And then, you know, their friends sees that you did something for them and they reach out and it just becomes so easy. So that's a really huge thing. And I feel that in your years of advising advisors, probably that's a really tough thing to get people to kind of finally do because they logically understand it. But it's so tempting to go do anything to anybody with respect to retirement income. And it's hard to really zero in on that niche.

Now, not to say if some friend from church or Rotary or the gym asks you about financial services, you're not going to turn them away because they're not in your niche, but you're going to create that campaign. pain. So is it, have you found that that is hard that people logically understand, you know, focus on a niche, but then it's hard to kind of jump in with two feet. Well, and what I would also say is that sometimes your niche isn't what you think it is. And let me tell you a true story about me. So I get in the business, I come out of the military. I was going to be the military guy to represent MetLife to the military in the Arizona area. Well, at the time, there were two Air Force bases, Luke and Williams Air Force Base right outside of Phoenix. Well, you know, Army doesn't get along that great with Air Force.

I mean, we get along, but it's not like we're buddy, buddy, buddy. Yeah. And I was struggling in that market. At the same time, I had met a guy who is one of those new home sales reps that's in the model house. And we bought a house from him and he started giving me all the names of all the other people who were buying in the neighborhood. So I could call them up. I could do their homeowners insurance. I get their auto.

I get their life. I get their annuity. Get the 401k roller. And then he introduced me to a bunch of other of these salespeople. and other model homes. And so I'd get their lists. And it was amazing. And so I had a, manager who made me write down all of my production. Where did I get it? How did I get it? What, blah, blah, blah. And he collected the books every time it came in the office. He says, give me a book. So I gave me a book. And he's looking through it. He says, tell me about your

operation. I said, well, I'm the military guy. So I'm working about half the time in this military market. And I've kind of developed relationship with this new home guy. So I'm working this new home market. He said, okay, I want you to stop the military stuff immediately and do 100% new home. I said, no, no, no, I'm the military guy. I'm Army guy, right? And he goes, but it's not working. You're not writing any business from it. You're renting a ton of business over here.

Stop that, do this. That one change alone allowed me to make MD or T my first year. I would have never done that on myself. In my mind, I was the military guy. That was my niche. But that wasn't my niche. My niche was the new home market. So you want to hear an observation about that.

Yeah. You didn't see the production is coming from. Yeah, the numbers don't lie. And you did not see the forest for the trees because you were too close to it. And it took an external outside third party person coming in looking for those numbers going, here's the deal. Stop doing this. Start doing that.

So that then brings up the whole concept of sometimes you can't just do it on your own the way that you think you should be doing it. Sometimes you need to have that advisor mentor coach to kind of look at it from the 60,000 foot view, not even the 30,000 foot view and go, hey, why don't you think about adjusting this? Not a full on 180, but just a little pivot here, a little bit. bit of a, you know, momentum in this direction. Yeah. And that manager's name was John Veltry. But, you know, I'm a product of the Kinderbrothers. I'm a product of Joe Jordan. A lot of people don't know this. Joe Jordan's big speaker, but he was the head of the annuity department at MetLife when I was there. And I was on Joe Jordan's annuity advisory council. And I learned a ton

from Joe Jordan. And I learned a ton from the Kinderbrothers and Ted Kielkuski, mutual funds and all this stuff. I wouldn't be here without them. And now that's what I'm trying to do for other people. Like you can do it on your own. Go ahead. It takes 30 years to get where, you know, where I'm at. Or you can have me fast track you, just like they fast track me. I made MDRT my first year. Less than what, one tenth of one percent of all the advisors that ever make MDRT

in their first year. How do you do that? Well, I didn't do it on my own. I learned from people who were already there who taught me how to get there faster and on a straighter path. And as the venerable Jim Rohn used to say success, leaves clues. And so if Tom Hegna has, you know, swathed a path through the jungle and figured out a path that is proven and success leaves clues, maybe you should tap into what he's got going on.

So, Tom, thank you so much for coming on. If someone is interested in tapping into your systems, what's the best way they can learn more and reach out and connect? So the best way I think is to go to tomhagnet.com forward slash webinars. Tomhagnet.com forward slash webinars. I have like seven free webinars. You don't need a credit card. You don't even need a credit card to register. Watch each of them.

They're full of great content. At the end of each one, those webinars will introduce you to training systems that I have and other things and they'll offer you prices that you can't get if you just go to tomahegna.com, you can buy all my stuff, but you're going to pay a lot more than if you watch the webinars. The webinars will get you a huge discount on everything that I do. So watch those webinars, Tomhagnet.com, forward. You can also have your clients go to YouTube and type in Tom Hagen and start watching some of those

videos. Or if you see a nice video on there, you can send them that link to watch it. You know, I wrote an article, why Ken Fisher really loves annuities and you should too. You might want to forward that article to them. I mean, I don't know. I mean, those are some of the tips that I would say. I love it. Well, Tom, thank you so much for coming on today. It's been a real pleasure talking with you.

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. www. influential entrepreneurs radio.com.