73: Financial Evolution with Trent Fortner: From Capital Needs to Infinite Banking

[00:00:00] Hello, everyone. This is John Montoya. And this is John Perrings. We are Infinite Banking Authorized Practitioners and Hosts of the Fifth Edition.

[00:00:12] John Perrings: Episode number 74. Today, I am excited to have Trent Fortner join us. Trent has had a 35 year career in the insurance industry in the business of life insurance, first as a very high producing insurance agent and now as a coach for in this business. And worry, this is all going to be for consumers.

[00:00:39] But also I know we have some agents out there listening, so really this episode is for both of you for you types of people. Trent has played a instrumental role in many of the life insurance planning systems before IBC really even came on the scene. He started as a LEAP producer and trainer.

[00:00:57] LEAP stands for Lifetime Economic [00:01:00] Acceleration Process, is one of the gold standards out there for really helping people. the numbers why owning life insurance is can help make everything else you're doing even better, right? More relevant to this podcast Trent was even around when Infinite Banking first came on the scene.

[00:01:20] So I'll be excited to talk to him about his his experience with anything there. And of course, for me personally Trent has been an incredibly positive influence for me in my career. I started in this. Business because of my experience with IBC in my personal life, first.

[00:01:37] And so when I started, I was really focusing lot of my professional development around the cash value of a life insurance policy, of course. And Trent was really the first person. Who opened my eyes to understanding the value of the death benefit, of course, among many other things. And so Trent has been my coach for, since I started in this business from day one, and I [00:02:00] really owe a lot of my success to what Trent has been able to help me with.

[00:02:04] And again, while this episode is geared towards consumers, any advisors who also happen to be listening will be, greatly benefit from listening to Trent. Trent, I hope that was an okay introduction. I'm really excited to have you on the podcast and, again, I'm super thankful and grateful that you came into my life and, we've become friends as well over the last several years.

[00:02:24] So thanks a lot. And what, if I, if you could do the background over or anything else, how would you describe your background?

[00:02:32] Trent Fortner: The only thing I would add is my wife and I have been married for, since 1991, so it was at 32 years, and we've dated for 43 years, and we

[00:02:42] have three great sons between the ages of 20 and 28, and my office manager Rocco, my shepherd he's not here at the moment, but he's he kinda leads the way these days.

[00:02:53] John Perrings: Yeah. Yep.

[00:02:55] Trent Fortner: I would I've really enjoyed getting to know you, John, and your family and watching your family grow here. It's guys [00:03:00] like you that make this coaching job easy.

[00:03:02] John Perrings: Yeah. I think it's it goes both ways, obviously. The it's been an awesome five years for me now after I made that big career change from tech and, really. Not to toot my own horn too much, but, been part of the top producers three out of the last five years.

[00:03:19] And if it weren't for Trent I think that would have been very challenging. I don't know if I would, I don't think I would have been able to do it without you, so thank you.

[00:03:27] Trent Fortner: Thank you. Congratulations.

[00:03:30] John Perrings: Just getting into your background a little bit, was there anything in particular that kind of convinced you to get into this business or how did that even happen?

[00:03:38] Trent Fortner: When I was in college, I actually, I majored in accounting and I avoided this, I don't know if I ever told you this story, I avoided interviews with insurance companies like the plague. My father had what sounded like a bad experience with the advisor that had approached him and actually had talked to him about permanent insurance and it [00:04:00] didn't go well.

[00:04:01] From, as a Young guy watching at the time. I didn't know anything about what was going on really financially, but the side that I got was like it didn't go very well. And then I had one after I graduated college and I was an auditor for a bit. I had a cousin who was 26 years old, married, child about 18 months, another one on the way, and he got hit by a drunk driver two weeks, two blocks from his house.

[00:04:29] Killed him. And I had been a part of helping protect them and that really kept me in the business. And it happened like soon when I got in. I later found out that when I became a trainer, I got to train the guy that talked to my father. And come find out my dad was wrong in what he had heard. So I actually apologized to him during that session and we became good friends and things took off after that.

[00:04:59] John Perrings: [00:05:00] What, I hear a lot of these types of things and want, a lot of what Helped me help to reinforce what the value that I see in this business is stories like that. So I don't have anything Personally that has happened that tragic yet, but just meeting people who are dealing with some of these, really serious, life and death matters.

[00:05:25] It it really helps you understand. And unfortunately, a lot of people wait until these things happen and then they don't have a lot of options. They don't have a lot of options after it happens. Planning ahead of time and realizing that, life isn't always about, markets going up or investing and all that stuff.

[00:05:44] Sometimes life is about, a car accident or or a wedding, or, it's also good things that happen that when, you're either protected if bad things happen, or if good things happen, with what we do with, Permanent Life Insurance, you have cash to take advantage of those things.

[00:05:59] So [00:06:00] what experience have you had with, the Infinite Banking Concept and Nelson Nash? And you were around while these things were helping or when they were all developing. I'd be curious to hear, anything, any experience you might have with it.

[00:06:15] Trent Fortner: I had a fantastic experience with Nelson. I, he was a friend. He was a good trainer. He and I, when he first I guess he was just really starting to take off. I was introduced to him by a general agent out of Little Rock, Arkansas, Jake's Ramsey, who's a friend of mine, and Nelson and I hit it off really quick.

[00:06:37] And we started doing seminars for families I guess similar to what you do every day. And we, I don't know how many we had,

[00:06:45] hundreds that showed up.

[00:06:47] John Perrings: Nash did?

[00:06:48] Trent Fortner: Nelson and I did. I was introduced to the LEAP process and Nelson about the same time.

[00:06:54] John Perrings: Okay.

[00:06:55] Trent Fortner: I guess it, I started more in action with Infinite [00:07:00] Banking before I did LEAP.

[00:07:01] John Perrings: I

[00:07:01] Trent Fortner: and Nelson and I probably did four or five seminars.

[00:07:07] A lot of them in my office. And in fact, one of the leaders who is one of the Administrators, Leaders, Speakers with Infinite Banking Concepts, Carlos Lara. I introduced him to Nelson. He

[00:07:19] was working in my office at the time.

[00:07:21] John Perrings: Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:07:22] Trent Fortner: it's amazing how

[00:07:24] the world is,

[00:07:25] John Perrings: that makes sense. Nashville. Yeah.

[00:07:27] Trent Fortner: yeah, the world is so small

[00:07:29] and smaller the more we get engaged with people's lives.

[00:07:33] But what I loved about working with Nelson was he was so matter of fact and he cared about people. We talk so much, you alluded to this a moment ago, we talk so much about numbers and rates of returns

[00:07:45] and those type of things and there's one thing that we're all certain of and I think it's sometimes it's a lost in the Infinite Banking process where people are only looking at cash value.

[00:07:59] I don't think [00:08:00] that was the way it was ever intended, but one thing for sure is we're all going to live until we don't. One of the things Nelson used to say is, when you know what's going, when you know what's going on, you'll know what to do. And one of the things that's going on is we all live until we die, but the life insurance, particularly the death benefit, if it's permanent insurance, it's going to be there your entire lifetime, it actually gives you the freedom to live now.

[00:08:26] John Perrings: That's

[00:08:26] Trent Fortner: To be able to experience life and not just prepare for the end of it, that's a phenomenal tool. But you're matching the guaranteed event with a guaranteed contract and that

[00:08:35] creates a lot of flexibility over your lifetime.

[00:08:39] John Perrings: That's a great, I don't know if I've ever heard you say it that way. A guarantee, matching a guaranteed event with a guaranteed outcome. And of course, we understand that's what it's all about. Life insurance does, but I've never heard it exactly like that. That's a, that's pretty good.

[00:08:56] Trent Fortner: I think the, the real thing I'll get out of that is that permanent [00:09:00] insurance takes the ifs away from planning. Term insurance and the way that life insurance is typically sold is all about an if game. If someone should die by a certain time.

[00:09:09] John Perrings: Right.

[00:09:11] Trent Fortner: If we want to cover things, but when you're properly planning like you do with people, you are literally working beyond someone's needs.

[00:09:21] You're working into the world of how to live a more effective life.

[00:09:26] John Perrings: Yeah. It takes the ifs out and you're only dealing with whens the whens are pretty open because you have that present value, also known as the cash value, because you have that you have cash available when happens, when you need it, and then all the other stuff is, When you happen to die, it's there.

[00:09:47] Trent Fortner: Yeah, I would bring in another form of that too. I think because of the certainty of that

[00:09:52] in the event of the end of life, you're also bringing in the W I N,

[00:09:57] win,

[00:09:58] John Perrings: Right?

[00:09:59] Trent Fortner: your lifetime, with [00:10:00] certainty.

[00:10:01] John Perrings: Which you pronounce almost exactly the same way with your cool Nashville accent.

[00:10:06] Trent Fortner: What?

[00:10:06] John Perrings: Basically, once, when Trent starts talking, he sounds so good you just, you can't help but listen. What that's pretty interesting that you came across LEAP and IBC at the same time. I always thought you came across LEAP maybe first.

[00:10:18] And How do you think those two things, my understanding is that, LEAP and of course, IBC, they really started giving people a way to understand. You just mentioned it's not about the numbers and the rate of return, but we can look at some numbers.

[00:10:38] We can look at outcomes, and these tools have given us a way to do that, especially, some of the calculators like Leap. And by the way, if you're a consumer out there, Leap is more of like a professional tool, so it's not really available to the regular Joe, you're out there searching for it right now.

[00:10:55] But How do you think those things changed the [00:11:00] landscape of life insurance, basically the life insurance experience, like dealing with agents, putting it into their life all that stuff.

[00:11:09] Trent Fortner: It was and still is to this day seems to be something that's new to agents and advisors

[00:11:16] and CPAs and attorneys. if they haven't been trained to see what we're able to see, then it's always going to be just surface value.

[00:11:24] John Perrings: Right.

[00:11:25] Trent Fortner: going to dive deep into the holistic approach of how assets can coordinate and work together.

[00:11:32] Insurance agents are. I originally taught through something that's called Capital Needs Analysis, or Financial Needs Analysis,

[00:11:38] which most people have gone through, and that was a marketing campaign. That was created by Mr. Wolf and it was phenomenal for the insurance companies because it created a lot of sales early and it was great for selling a lot of term insurance and acquiring term insurance.

[00:11:55] Term insurance is a great tool for protecting someone's [00:12:00] life to replace their income when life is over but it's a short term tool

[00:12:04] and the fact the name itself term that means it's going to expire but I've never met anybody that wants to have a claim on term insurance because That means you have to die early

[00:12:14] John Perrings: That's right.

[00:12:15] Trent Fortner: and most people have been taught by that by capital needs analysis and then some people that came through later with some Wall Street marketing attempts to say that people won't need life insurance later in life

[00:12:30] after they retire because maybe the debt's paid off and kids are gone.

[00:12:32] What I found to be Very interesting is, that's not really true. It has nothing to do with the need for the death benefit after you retire. But it has everything to do with its characteristic changing to becoming asset insurance.

[00:12:50] John Perrings: Right.

[00:12:50] Trent Fortner: would you ever imagine John cancelling your homeowner's insurance? The same thing happens when we get later in life. If you have, again, a guaranteed event, [00:13:00] end of life, matched with a guaranteed contract, the death benefit, then that means all of the other assets you accumulate over your lifetime, you now have the freedom to use more aggressively, less aggressively, more income, less tax.

[00:13:19] Strategies for creating income while you're here without the risk of running out of money because when life's over you're going to, if you have an amount equal to the size of your estate, you're going to end up replacing everything that you prepared to enjoy while you're here with those you love and leave behind.

[00:13:37] John Perrings: Right.

[00:13:37] Trent Fortner: there is no better positioning than that.

[00:13:41] John Perrings: That's right. And so you, you said something that it continues to this day that people still don't really know. They're not aware of the way we think about this. do you think that is? Like, why, just overcoming so [00:14:00] much noise out there? Basically every TV show you watch or every newspaper you read or magazine article is all they look at life insurance really as a cost and like a need like a needs replacement rather than, Something that's an asset that goes along with everything else that you're already doing,

[00:14:22] Trent Fortner: Yeah, good question. So it has come a long way in the 35 years I've been in the business. When I started, there wasn't a lot of books supporting what we're talking about today. There

[00:14:33] wasn't a lot of actually, there weren't even 401ks that had just come into existence when I got in the business in the mid

[00:14:40] to late 80s.

[00:14:41] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:14:42] Trent Fortner: And today though, there's an enormous amount of information. Really, it's just, we're bombarded with information, but there is a lot of confusion.

[00:14:50] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:14:50] Trent Fortner: It still is shown as a cost, and technically, if you're looking for the least outlay that someone can make, which [00:15:00] typically is term insurance or a watered down version of a universal life or something like that, it is a cost,

[00:15:06] and the reason that it's a cost is because you have no expectation or desire for a return from it.

[00:15:13] You end up losing the premiums you pay for, what you could have earned on those premiums, plus you lose the death benefit and its ability to help you capitalize your other assets.

[00:15:21] John Perrings: Talking about all the stuff that's already out there. What do you think the main problems are for, regular people out there or just anyone? If we were to. I don't know if you want to go this deep with it, but I was thinking, what do you think the problems are for the lower, middle, and upper class that we, that we help solve?

[00:15:39] Or let's just start with the problems. What do you think the problems are for just regular people out there?

[00:15:46] Trent Fortner: It's a good question, it goes back to the last question you asked me as well. A lot of it has to do with who's controlling the decisions. Most of the people that are playing this financial game. Have what they have because of the limited [00:16:00] knowledge of how their assets and choices work.

[00:16:03] And that's, I think that's intentional. The big three institutions that are writing the rules and teaching consumers how to play, which is the government, or IRS, the the banks, and Wall Street, they're in constant competition for who's in control of the most money, but what they teach, and they're also in each other's...

[00:16:24] I don't know how to say this without it sounding bad, it's not really bad in itself, they are in each other's pockets constantly, they are in cahoots, if you will,

[00:16:36] in the Because they teach strategies to follow for specific girls. They want us to give them our money on a regular basis for as long as possible

[00:16:44] and then when it's time for us to take our money back.

[00:16:47] Then we take it back in as small increments as possible. think about your 401ks and those type things. What is really happening because of that is you are forfeiting control of your money. [00:17:00] It would be and this covers almost every one you just asked me about, John.

[00:17:03] So the biggest problem would be misinformation that you accept in the context of not knowing how to play the game by the way the institutions do.

[00:17:14] John Perrings: That's

[00:17:14] Trent Fortner: You're playing the game with the institutions. They are, most people don't know the rules, don't know that the rules are changing and don't know the power strategies.

[00:17:25] John Perrings: That's

[00:17:26] Trent Fortner: And so what, the big three, they don't care if you win, they're not really trying to create strategies for the consumer to win, they just want you to stay in the game

[00:17:36] John Perrings: Because

[00:17:36] Trent Fortner: as long as possible. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. When you put money in the bank. You're loaning the money to the government, I mean to the bank for them to loan the money out to others. You have no say in who they loan the money to, you have no participation in the profits in which, when you put the money in the bank, they might thank you with 1%, but they're gonna loan it out at 3 percent or higher.

[00:17:59] So they're gonna [00:18:00] start off with a rate of return that's 3 times higher than what you gave them and they have no risk in it. Wall Street wants you to stay in the game. A retirement plan is not a retirement plan like a 401k. It doesn't end at the day you retire. It ends at the day you die. And so they're looking at holding your money for 50, 60, 70 years.

[00:18:22] And they get paid whether it goes up or down.

[00:18:24] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:18:24] Trent Fortner: they are, there are rules in place where they have to turn over portfolios of

[00:18:29] mutual funds. So that if they're not in a qualified plan they're in an outside of a qualified plan then those are going to create additional taxes even with the when the share values go down.

[00:18:40] So knowing the rules of that game. That's right fees and commissions. In fact I don't know if anybody knows this but this really impacts everybody too. So if you are in a plan for life 30, 40, 50, 60 years the 30 years you work and then the 20, 30 years after you retire and you live to the end of a normal life.

[00:18:58] A one percent fee. [00:19:00] 1%, sounds small. The average fee is like 3. 3%, but the, a 1 percent fee will take away up to 36 percent of the real dollars that are available to someone by transferring it away through the management of those funds. And the consumer never sees that. They never see that.

[00:19:27] John Perrings: There's so much that is not seen. And it, it's a strange thing, and me and all the people that we're, affiliated with in our little groups are, we're doing a lot to try to people about this, but man, I tell you it's a, it's an uphill battle a little bit with a lot of folks where they're just like, I just put my money in a, in ETF or, whatever, and that's all I do.

[00:19:51] And all those things you just mentioned, not having control over what's going on, any type of control, like there's very little [00:20:00] control that you have when you use those types of products. And I think, to me, that's one of the biggest things, and I'm glad you brought it up, that people are just unaware of, like, how that can possibly affect them if things don't go the way, we hope they go.

[00:20:16] Trent Fortner: Is hope a financial strategy?

[00:20:18] John Perrings: No. No, it is not. It's not any, it's not a financial strategy or any other strategy for that matter. There's a great sales book out there called Hope is Not a Strategy. That was one of the

[00:20:30] Trent Fortner: Hmm.

[00:20:30] John Perrings: we used to work off of back when I was in, in tech. My early days. It we touched on it a little bit. In your experience, what's the highest and best use life insurance in someone's financial life?

[00:20:51] Trent Fortner: It's a great question. I think it's got three different perspectives as we go through life. There's three phases of life with money, and that's the accumulation phase. That's

[00:20:59] [00:21:00] where while we're healthy and working and. And trying to create assets to take care of us later in life. And early on while we're working, life insurance is a great tool as a replacement of income if you don't make it through retirement.

[00:21:13] If... The problem is most people don't replace their full income. They're only buying three to seven times their income replacement. Because they think in terms of lump sums,

[00:21:24] replacing it with lump sums. I don't want to

[00:21:25] leave somebody else wealthy. I don't want to be wealthier or worth more dead than alive.

[00:21:32] That's actually not possible. If

[00:21:34] you are... Think about how much income you're going to make over your working life. Then income replacement would be the first one. Later in life... And through that, if you, depending on the type of insurance you have the banking type policy, the whole life type policy, then you will be having more wealth for two reasons.

[00:21:54] One, you have access to capital that allows you to be creative, to [00:22:00] create new assets. To have access to the capital without liquidating the account. You don't have to take the money out of the insurance to acquire new assets. There is a term, it's called a loan, a non forfeiture provision that allows you to have access to the money where the insurance company loans you their money.

[00:22:18] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:22:19] Trent Fortner: this is what you teach in IBC, but I'm trying to make this real simple. They give you your money. So that you then have a choice on what you would like to invest in or purchase or acquire and as Nelson says to be an honest banker you would want to pay that back with interest and actually a little more interest than what the insurance company charges.

[00:22:39] So you have access to capital along the way where you don't have that option if all of your money goes first to a retirement plan.

[00:22:46] John Perrings: Right.

[00:22:47] Trent Fortner: Cause the government controls everything about that. You might have choices of where you can invest in on the limited choice of what they say, but there's an amount that there's a maximum amount you can put in.

[00:22:57] There's restrictions on when you take it out [00:23:00] and how you get penalized and taxed and those things both while you're working and then after you retire. And then there's the third phase of wealth that where life insurance really shines and that's through the preservation of wealth.

[00:23:11] And what that means is, not necessarily just building a legacy, but actually becoming the beneficiary of your own policy because of the assets you build outside of the policy. And when you're able to have those functions, you've got a dollar doing the job of three, four, five dollars at one time.

[00:23:32] Minimizes market risk, minimizes taxation or inflation risk, and puts, again, liquidity and control in the hands of the owner of those type policies.

[00:23:45] John Perrings: And the ability to do that, you to go out and invest in things that you don't have to... Hit these, try to hit these home runs where, we're taught to take on risk to get a high rate of return. Of course, people [00:24:00] completely ignore that risk part of the equation.

[00:24:02] And you can get your dollar to do two safe 5 percent jobs Guess what, that's the same as getting a 10%, doing a 10% job, but you just, you don't have all that risk that you get with the 10% job. I'm just making up the numbers here, but that's, that's what people talk about when they put money in their 401K.

[00:24:20] They'll get, whatever average rate of return at 10%. Meanwhile we won't get into the to the macroeconomic stuff today, but

[00:24:29] Trent Fortner: yeah.

[00:24:30] John Perrings: yeah.

[00:24:30] Trent Fortner: You said a handful of great information there, and so one is risk. What is the definition of risk? It's the probability of loss.

[00:24:39] John Perrings: Right.

[00:24:40] Trent Fortner: But most people, because of marketing from Wall Street, have equated high risk, high return.

[00:24:46] There's zero correlation to that.

[00:24:48] John Perrings: Exactly.

[00:24:50] Trent Fortner: Zero.

[00:24:51] John Perrings: but people talk about it like it is, I read, LinkedIn conversations and I'm on a couple of real estate forums and people talk about, [00:25:00] they say, I like the idea of having a little more exposure so that I can. They use this word exposure so that they can as if it means a high rate of return, and I'm like, so I'll get on there.

[00:25:11] I'm like, people die of exposure. That's actually, one of the first things that we talk about in Pavlov's hierarchy of, not

[00:25:17] Trent Fortner: Yeah.

[00:25:17] John Perrings: the hierarchy of needs. We

[00:25:19] Trent Fortner: Maslow, Maslow.

[00:25:21] John Perrings: Hey Maslow, thank you. Pavlov is the dog. So it really boggles my mind, and one of the things that got me into this business, I used to be in the data center business.

[00:25:32] And one of the focuses I had there was data center real estate. So we would work, and data center, real estate and finance. So we would, be brokers and advisors for some of these big data center assets. Acquisitions. And one of the things that got me on the path that I'm on now is I noticed that these big institutional investors that would come in and buy these, whatever 50 million, a hundred million dollar data [00:26:00] center real estate assets, the top in the top two things that they were concerned about, rate of return wasn't in the top two.

[00:26:09] was control and risk. That's how people with big money look at how they use their money. They don't talk about taking risks to get a high return. They talk about protecting their capital and controlling their capital because they know if they can, if they have control over a high quality asset, meaning low risk and cash flows, they can get multiple rates of return.

[00:26:32] Just like we're talking about right now, they can get multiple rates of return off that asset without taking a whole bunch of risk,

[00:26:39] Trent Fortner: Great point. So here's a few questions I talk to advisors about when I'm in front of clients like you may have on the call today. These are questions I love having with them too is, would you, this question might be, would you ever consciously and intentionally choose to lose money?

[00:26:57] John Perrings: right?

[00:26:58] Trent Fortner: If the answer is [00:27:00] no, then risk is not something you would want to be involved in.

[00:27:04] Right? And when I look at people's lives financially, I get, that's, I get to do that every day like you, is there is a lot of money that's being lost, a lot of people don't even know about. They know about some, market volatility, knows about the planned losses of taxes, but they don't know about the ancillary what I call collateral damage because they made those decisions.

[00:27:27] And so there are, there's more than the risk of. There's much more than just the risk of the market or the tax, there's 14 or 15 different types of risk. Health risk, political risk, liquidity risk, I mean we could go on and on,

[00:27:41] lawsuit risk, disability risk, 14 or 15 of them and usually ignored by consumers.

[00:27:48] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:27:48] Trent Fortner: So if somebody says I would like that exposure, I say well how much money would you be willing to lose before you made a new decision? When does it make, when does it make sense? How much longer do you need to [00:28:00] continue to lose money? Or is that something you'd like to correct right away? And what I love about the conversation you've started here as we talk with consumers is we're looking for ways to, to create more certainty in somebody's life.

[00:28:14] People ask me all the time, Trent, what do you do obviously I've got lots of answers over 35 years, but really the answer is I help people keep more. I should say we, because you do this, and you do this. We help people keep more of what they earn and earn more on what they keep with certainty.

[00:28:31] John Perrings: Yes. That's the thing. The certainty part is no one really has that. No one really has that. And, a lot of people are just convinced that... Over the long term, yeah, the market will go up and down, but if I do this for the long term I'll ride out those things. And it's will you, because the long term in our, a human, our lives end and, we get into a stage where we're not working.

[00:28:59] Sometimes called [00:29:00] retirement. And that's when the long term becomes the short term it will happen. The long term will become the short term. And so the question is your short term gonna, is the timing of when that becomes the short term gonna, will that actually sync up with the long term results? That you're supposedly going to get, in your whatever stock market investments, all that stuff.

[00:29:20] Trent Fortner: Great point. Something I just, I heard yesterday again, but it was worthy of mentioning here. So when you're working through who you want to The three, the big three, big four institutions when you're working and looking at planning and how they will, where you want to place money and risk. So one is you could invest money in the market and they look at the short term more than anybody.

[00:29:47] So look at the last five year track record. They measure it in five years and 10 year increments. The furthest they go back is 30 years. Let's say, here's our 30 year return and then in big boat letters they have to say [00:30:00] future performance is not guaranteed, or past performance does not guarantee future results.

[00:30:06] You look at insurance companies who have to take, they have to measure and they have hundreds of years of experience and when they think of future planning they're thinking because of actuarial science, they're thinking of 40, 50, 60 years. And then they have to take the risk to meet the guarantees of what they're going to give the consumer.

[00:30:27] John Perrings: that's

[00:30:28] Trent Fortner: if you're, if you throw your money through, fuel your money through insurance you're working on a program that's going to work for 40, 50, 60 years. It's already been designed to work that way. No matter what else happens in the marketplace. So you as the contract owner, Do not take the risk. The insurance company carries the risk.

[00:30:51] So you have contract wealth or you could have statement wealth where you take on risk.

[00:30:56] John Perrings: That's right. And the, that 40, 50, 60 [00:31:00] years, that's just your life. Imagine all the lives that come after you, the people that you care about, then it really starts to really starts to grow. Switching over a little bit to the advisors in this business, the agents and everything, you've worked with, is it safe to say thousands of advisors?

[00:31:22] Trent Fortner: Yeah, it is.

[00:31:23] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:31:24] Trent Fortner: I've been coaching for 15 years. And in those 15 years, people who have directly hired me to work is and that's approaching a thousand now.

[00:31:34] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:31:34] Trent Fortner: over 35 years I've spoken in groups and presentations and trained so ten, maybe tens of thousands.

[00:31:43] John Perrings: that level of experience what are some of the biggest areas where you think, when agents maybe, Go a little wrong. Where do you, what do you think that is? Where do most agents where are they not getting it, or where are they maybe doing something that [00:32:00] could be better, like suboptimal for their, for themselves and their clients?

[00:32:06] Trent Fortner: One is which should be most important is you need to be able to listen to your client and not come in with a sales agenda to sell a product.

[00:32:14] What amazes me is that Even if the only, I'll call it, license that someone may have for getting paid and brokering through some type of product of all the financial products that are out there, let's say they only have one license, maybe it's life insurance, since that's what we're talking about today. I talked to those agents and the truth is we're not selling life insurance. I'm not an agent anymore, but coaching you guys, you're not really selling life insurance. What you're selling is the certainty of a better life of experiences, memories, the ability to create generational wealth, to create family wealth that the entire family can take on through family [00:33:00] banking or through holistic planning.

[00:33:03] And what we're really selling is opportunity, flexibility, control, and those things I just mentioned while protecting. All of those financial decisions from all those different risks that come to take their money in it and knowing that every other Marketing piece out there is designed to separate you from your money

[00:33:26] And so you must protect it So what I see from advisors where they might be making a mistake is they go in with the sales agenda to try to figure Out what they want the client to own before they get there because they're basing it maybe on their own income

[00:33:40] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:33:41] Trent Fortner: Not everybody does this, but a lot do that.

[00:33:44] What I've loved about the trainings that you've been involved with and those I've worked with is if you are truly trying to create the best results for the client, you meet them where they are, and you would want to find out where the [00:34:00] client is losing first,

[00:34:01] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:34:02] Trent Fortner: that's guaranteed losses, and if you could take that money and somehow give it back to them, if you find a way to give it back to them through the strategies that you create, Then you can create real wealth with dollars they were previously just thrown away.

[00:34:16] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:34:18] Trent Fortner: And most of the time the client didn't even know that was possible. But that gives the advisor the freedom to listen and to create real value for the client instead of selling a product.

[00:34:33] John Perrings: Yeah. We, when we talked about that, when we have talked about that in the past, we talk about it like money that's getting away from them and they don't realize it. We use that kind of terminology. It's no secret that there's like a pretty low barrier to entry to become a life insurance agent.

[00:34:49] There's not a whole lot you got to do. Real estate, I was a real estate agent. So I know that it's about the same, level. But what do you think [00:35:00] people can do out there to like consumers? What do you think they could do to make sure they're working with?

[00:35:06] A good solid agent because on, on one side, like I said, there's a low barrier to entry. It doesn't take a whole lot. But man, there are some really excellent agents out there, brokers, agents who do really great things for families and they're very experienced and they're doing things that no one else can do.

[00:35:27] No one else knows how to do. But the challenge is, and one of the things we try to help people with, we all on this podcast, we always steer people towards InfiniteBanking. org because they have a list of, authorized practitioners for IBC. And at the very least, that is demonstrating that.

[00:35:49] The agents on there care enough to go through an entire, entirely separate certification process and training which, which happens all the time and [00:36:00] every year there's a gathering. Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that that's. At least one thing that people can do, but what do you think? Is there a way that you've, you would be able to tell people to evaluate who they're working with and whether or not they're, work their salt?

[00:36:19] Trent Fortner: One is are they doing what they're teaching?

[00:36:23] So you might ask for examples, how have you used this in your life?

[00:36:27] That's one. And they should be able to demonstrate that both if they care to with their own financials and with real strategies they could draw. They know it so they'd be able to draw out what they've actually done in results. I would want someone who has probably overcome some challenges in their life

[00:36:46] John Perrings: Mm hmm.

[00:36:47] Trent Fortner: and have Continue to learn. So I want to know, what is their learning? Not just having certifications is great. And you mentioned the Infinite Banking Certification, which means you did some additional training. But have you hired a [00:37:00] coach?

[00:37:01] How much? You can even ask, how much additional training do you do that is not paid for by a company you work for that you actually

[00:37:08] invest each year?

[00:37:10] John Perrings: right.

[00:37:10] Trent Fortner: How often do you go to those trainings? Are you a member of a mastermind group that elevates your learning? What resources do you have? Just because someone has an MBA and a license doesn't make them an effective communicator and able to walk you through the strategies you need for you if they haven't done what they're asking you to do. So it's important that Maybe the advisor will be their best client, their own best client, and have the ability to demonstrate to their clients how this works.

[00:37:44] But I would want to know that they're getting a lot of continuing education. And that they don't have to have all these designations at the end of their name for them to be fantastic advisors.

[00:37:54] I would want to know, what are again, what types of training do you have, how often do you [00:38:00] meet, who's your mentor?

[00:38:02] What are you doing to advance these strategies? I just think that's really important.

[00:38:07] John Perrings: I'm well into the six figures on continuing training, hiring people to that are experienced in the business. Mostly, I'm not saying it all. It all went to Trent, but a lot of it did. And

[00:38:20] Trent Fortner: Yeah.

[00:38:22] John Perrings: It pays in spades, you've really got to, it gets back to that idea of your son Brock, who's also a heavy hitter in this business, and we've become friends, he's doing a lot to he's hiring a lot of people to help him with all the day to day stuff, and that it just gets to running A more effective better business that helps your clients do what they want to do.

[00:38:48] And I agree. I think that continuing education and really... Allocating the resources, which is money, but also your time and energy [00:39:00] improving and getting better at what we do. That's a given in any industry. But

[00:39:05] Trent Fortner: Yeah.

[00:39:05] John Perrings: not a lot of

[00:39:05] Trent Fortner: I think, I'm sorry, I was stepping

[00:39:07] on you there, John. I'm sorry about that. I think your clients and consumers would want to know that you're doing well in the industry. You mentioned your growth over the last five years, and You mentioned Brock, both of you are doing really well, and there's performance awards you get for serving well.

[00:39:23] In this business, if you create good value, you get rewarded well for doing that. And I think those clients who, this is the other thing that I found to be very important, I think the client and the advisor need to be thinking through the area of abundance, not scarcity. Because for you, for your advisor to win, you have to win.

[00:39:44] And they need to create that in advance. Not the lazy way to win, which means you just set it and forget it. They need to be involved in your life. I think that's extremely powerful on how that grows.

[00:39:57] John Perrings: Yeah. What. What are some things you could do [00:40:00] to do that? Give them a call. See if they pick up the phone. See if they call you back, before you buy that policy. Give them, test it out. Most of them will before you buy. It's it'll tell you something, how they run their practice, whether or not they have time, to call you back or make the time to call you back.

[00:40:14] Are you important? what do you think about persistency rates? Asking those types of questions, because you mentioned that, In order to do the best for your client, that leaves signs that the advisor will also be successful in this business and there are, programs and, awards or whatever that, they get for doing that.

[00:40:35] But there's also people who are more, they'll have a cookie cutter business. They just do a lot of marketing and they'll sign people up. With very little strategy, those people also, win awards, but I bet you their persistency rate, which what that means is persistency rate is if you sold 100 policies and.

[00:40:56] 25 of them canceled, your persistency rate would be [00:41:00] 75%. You start getting some eyebrows raised, I would say, when you get below, what do you think, 85%? Some of the

[00:41:09] Trent Fortner: That's probably right.

[00:41:11] John Perrings: you questions, right?

[00:41:12] Trent Fortner: Yeah, 85 to 80, 80 percent or less, you might even lose your contract as a producer.

[00:41:17] John Perrings: Right.

[00:41:18] Trent Fortner: what that means, is the producer... Who has good persistency, is someone who is well aligned with their client,

[00:41:27] John Perrings: Yes.

[00:41:28] Trent Fortner: ongoing value, not just a sell it and forget it approach, which unfortunately, not just in the insurance world, but in all, but in the investment world, and I see it in the banking world.

[00:41:39] Unfortunately, a lot of those people who are primarily sales people, and I don't think sales people is a bad word, I think. Most of those that are early on, they think about how much they can make in a commission and their persistency is low.

[00:41:56] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:41:57] Trent Fortner: Those that are there for their clients will always [00:42:00] have higher persistency because they create value first, they make sure it's right for the client before they say yes, and they have a commitment to stay with them for as long as they both shall live, if you will,

[00:42:11] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:42:11] Trent Fortner: or until they find a reason not to stay together.

[00:42:16] So that's extremely important.

[00:42:17] John Perrings: That brings up, sorry, I cut you off, but that brings up another point. Do they have a succession plan, a business succession plan? That's another great question that you could ask an agent that you're working with and what that means is they're partnered up with somebody whether it's a partner in their business or a lot of times agents just have their own businesses going.

[00:42:37] They're not necessarily part of a company. But do they have someone that can take over that knows what they're doing? Please if anything happens to them, so like another form of insurance, really.

[00:42:48] Trent Fortner: That's a good point. Very good point.

[00:42:50] John Perrings: For any agents listening to this, and by the way, all this stuff we're talking about, I think, if you're a buyer or consumer of life insurance, these are all really important things to [00:43:00] listen to. But for the agents out there, is there anything you could share that they could start doing today that would, make them a better agent or even IBC practitioner?

[00:43:12] Trent Fortner: One, if they are if they're going to call themselves an IBC practitioner, they do need to go through a certification program, or they do need to be a part of a mastermind group of peer producers

[00:43:24] who are committed and convicted to that process. And whatever that process is. You're a part of a couple of mastermind groups, and I've led one now for 15 years.

[00:43:35] Which is where producers come to enhance their skills to be more efficient for their client. That's a pretty strong word, be efficient for their client. And always looking for ways for their clients to win. That's, man, that's so important. So I think clients, the advisors need to do things to learn holistic planning.

[00:43:58] Not just what your company [00:44:00] offers, but what is in the marketplace that is a leading provider that creates great value, and there's things, you can look that up, there's ways to, Leap is a phenomenal one. There's a few others that are good. But most of the planning systems in the world, in the financial world, particularly insurance and investment, most of them have spun off of LEAP,

[00:44:21] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:44:22] Trent Fortner: because LEAP's been around for 50, 50 years now.

[00:44:24] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:44:25] Trent Fortner: So they all have bits and pieces, and calculators are, you can find a lot of calculators online, but you gotta know what they do for you. I think having an advisor who is committed to training, and realizing, don't ever get the I Have Arrived syndrome. I

[00:44:42] would say aggressively seek questions from your clients that you don't know the answer to.

[00:44:48] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:44:48] Trent Fortner: That's

[00:44:48] the only way you're going to learn and grow.

[00:44:50] John Perrings: From your

[00:44:51] Trent Fortner: I see a lot of agents, yeah, from your clients. I'm going to, this is something I tell agents because [00:45:00] clients may not know this. Being an advisor is hard. And the reason that is hard, is because a lot of people have this fear of calling someone and being judged.

[00:45:09] Particularly in the life insurance industry. That they're going to be judged that they are They're just for the sale or that they're greedy or that you know something like that And so they don't really reach out to those they think about but I want you to put yourself the consumer Listening for a moment and realize that your family you and your family are going to live until you don't you got to remember that Now remember think of the fact that you've got a friend or a family member who might be in that business who has not had The conversation with you yet about protecting your family They may be fearful about approaching you because you may, they may fear that you're more concerned about what they might earn.

[00:45:53] John Perrings: Right.

[00:45:54] Trent Fortner: Now for the advisor, this is what I tell them. I want you to write out [00:46:00] a letter to all the people you care about that you never called on, who now are This, I've never done this with consumers before this might cause a big eruption in the industry. Hopefully it is good. I want them to write a letter to all the people they chose not to call, and maybe that's going to the survivors.

[00:46:24] Maybe that's going to someone who's now unable to get the protection because their

[00:46:30] health changed. Can you imagine as an advisor showing up to the fears you had? That maybe you didn't have the right words, or that you were scared of how you would be judged by what you said, or you were worried about what your character or reputation would look like.

[00:46:45] So if you get, if you set that right first, the purpose, this is so powerful of a conversation for the consumer to have. Let them do their job if they [00:47:00] love you, if you love them. Let them do their job. To protect you, so they don't have to show up at your funeral and look at your family who survived and say, I'm sorry I didn't call you or, when you ask, do we have enough?

[00:47:15] So you don't have to say as an advisor, we never had that conversation. That's, I've been there, I've seen that's tough.

[00:47:24] John Perrings: Yeah. And for the buyers of life insurance out there, the another word for the consumers, it's one of the, I think one of the things is a fear of getting the wrong thing, or like it's not right for them or they're being misled or something like that is.

[00:47:39] I think, aside from the agents who, we can all always do better and learn more. But even aside from that, if you buy, even term insurance, we know what term insurance is. Even if you just have some term insurance, you really can't go wrong. You know what I mean? And then the

[00:47:57] Trent Fortner: Yeah.

[00:47:57] John Perrings: you can't go wrong is if you buy whole life [00:48:00] insurance.

[00:48:00] Whole life insurance from a reputable insurance carrier. The... You really can't go wrong. There's a lot of Hubble above out there, in the TikTok world about getting correctly designed policies and all this other stuff. You really can't buy an incorrectly designed policy, even if you just buy, even if you just bought a straight whole life policy, which I have it will be a great policy.

[00:48:26] It'll accumulate cash value slower. Yes, it will, but it'll have a massive death benefit and that thing will only get better every single year. And so I'm just saying that to, maybe on the other side of things where agents feel, like they. They're scared to, reach out to, people they care about because of how they'll be judged.

[00:48:45] On the other side, I think one of the reasons is there's a lot of kind of confusion and noise about how insurance works and rightly, and you're right, there is, if you're out there and you're feeling confused, but a lot of that stems from the universal [00:49:00] type of products or the variable type of products.

[00:49:02] When you go straight, when you go whole life insurance, man, the only thing you need to. Be on the lookout for are, like these blended term PUA riders. If you're looking into this, you'll know what that is. That's the only thing that really could be a problem with a whole life insurance policy.

[00:49:17] But other than that there's really no, no way to go wrong. It's going to be good,

[00:49:22] Trent Fortner: Yeah, it'll be good. I think there's some, there's so much misinformation in the marketplace. I would encourage consumers to do is to work with someone who has a system of providing evidence

[00:49:35] of how it works and not work on opinions.

[00:49:39] John Perrings: That's right.

[00:49:40] Trent Fortner: There's a lot of people on shows that have been around for a while who are doing good things at helping people become really aware of the financial condition. But they are giving some very dangerous advice to people when they say, just stay away from those type things.

[00:49:56] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:49:56] Trent Fortner: And their information they're giving is based on opinion, not [00:50:00] fact.

[00:50:00] John Perrings: That's right.

[00:50:01] Trent Fortner: Now what I love about what you do and the people that I've been involved with for years is that you guys will look at what the facts are today.

[00:50:11] And help evaluate a decision in the future based again on certainty and facts, not predictions, not sales hype, not opinions, but the facts. And if I were moving forward in my financial life with an advisor, I would want to base everything on facts.

[00:50:30] John Perrings: right.

[00:50:30] Trent Fortner: the financial physics of this decision, the cause and the effect, the outcome I would expect, what's guaranteed to happen. Can't, I can't stress that enough on how important that is.

[00:50:44] John Perrings: Trent, as we wrap up here, if there are any agents listening to this one how, what does it look like to work with you? And if anybody listening to this wanted to make some massive improvements to their practice and education and how they help clients, what are their [00:51:00] options to to work with you if you're even still available?

[00:51:02] I know you're, a lot of times you're booked, you're like the best kept secret in the business.

[00:51:08] Trent Fortner: Thank you for saying that. As I don't do any advertising. I am on LinkedIn. Occasionally post on LinkedIn. I have three programs for advisors. One is a group program. And that is a call that we have about three times a month. It's a recorded one hour call similar to a podcast, but it's about how to be more effective.

[00:51:33] Learn communication skills, product, strategies, tax law, but really getting to know your client. Who is your client? Who can you best serve? How can you best serve them? And so from a mastermind, that means a group of minds to create best practices in your approach. So I have almost 15 years of recorded calls of doing that with.

[00:51:55] Top Producers,

[00:51:56] John Perrings: Yeah.

[00:51:57] Trent Fortner: and New Producers. You came in as a new guy. So [00:52:00] you, and you escalated quickly. And you've seen that in our group. A lot of people have, that have come through that program. Reach out to me. There's a tuition for that. It's not an expensive one for the group. We'd have to have a call to see if we're a good fit.

[00:52:15] I don't like working with a lot of negative Nellies or the people that think they have arrived and know everything. I

[00:52:20] challenge people on that. If you're going to be involved in our group, you're going to get uplifted, you're going to get encouraged, you're going to be around people that want to create abundance and who live abundantly.

[00:52:30] So we'll make sure it stays that way. So there is a screening conversation we have. There's some one on one programs that I have. They're based on experience level of the advisor. I make them easy to get in. They sound expensive up front, but they become really I become a no out of pocket cost if you do what we talk about.

[00:52:48] John Perrings: Mm

[00:52:49] Trent Fortner: Because most of all of the tuition that I would be paid would be after your deposit is from the gains you get from doing the things we talk about. And if we're accountable to each other in the [00:53:00] program from our calls every week. And you do the things that we talk about, you will get great results for your clients.

[00:53:08] So that would not be an issue. And then I have the very experienced, top producers. I call it my Million Dollar Program. And that's for the guys that are doing exceptionally well, but know that there's a lot more that they could do.

[00:53:25] Not just from an income standpoint, but a lot more people they could serve more effectively.

[00:53:29] And they look for ways to enhance and to share and to grow and scale their businesses. And we could have that conversation as well. I

[00:53:38] John Perrings: I'll

[00:53:38] Trent Fortner: think I answered the question.

[00:53:40] John Perrings: case if having trouble figuring out how to get in touch with Trent just contact us at TheFifthEdition.Com and I'll put you in touch. No problem.

[00:53:47] Trent Fortner: I appreciate you doing it. You've been very gracious. Introduced me to a lot of people over the five years you've been here. And I appreciate you doing that.

[00:53:55] John Perrings: Absolutely. Trent, this has been awesome. [00:54:00] We were at about an hour here, so that was a good talk. I hope everyone enjoyed that and got a lot of, got a lot of value out of it. Trent, thank you again for being such a positive and impactful influence in my life and on the other folks out there.

[00:54:15] Really glad to have you on and I think we'll hopefully we can get you again sometime in the near future.

[00:54:20] Trent Fortner: Thank you, John. Thanks for having me today, and always I love talking to you. Tell your family hello for me, please.

[00:54:28] John Perrings: If you're out there listening and you found this episode to be valuable and, or any of the other episodes for that matter, and you'd like to learn more about how what we do could be of a benefit in your life personally, you can always go to thefifthedition. com And you can book a free 30 minute consultation, no obligation.

[00:54:48] We'll just talk about you and see if what we do

[00:54:51] Trent Fortner: Thank you.

[00:54:52] John Perrings: benefit you. If you're one of those people that likes to just learn as much as they can online, do all your research before talking to someone, I understand where [00:55:00] you're coming from and we've got an online course that's available as well at the top of the little top bar at TheFifthEdition.Com and you can register for our online course. All right. Thank you very much, Trent, and we'll talk soon.

[00:55:12] ​