Interview with Clyde Cleveland and Craig Randall
Clyde: Hi, my name is Clyde Cleveland, and I'm the Co-founder and President of Randall Marketing Group. Craig and I are here today just to tell you a little bit about Randall Marketing Group and answer some of the basic questions that we get quite often about our company.
First of all, let me tell you a little bit about Craig. Craig was the 2007 Senior Market Advisor of the year. He's one of the top producers in the country consistently year after year, but that's not really what makes Craig different. What really makes Craig different is his ability to teach this knowledge to other advisors, and that now has been going on for about three and a half years since we started Randall Marketing Group.
But one of the most common questions that we get about Randall Marketing Group is what is it that makes us different from other marketing groups out there. I'm going to let Craig tell you what he feels makes us different from other marketing groups. So, Craig?
Craig: Thanks, Clyde. I think one of the things that makes us a little bit different is that we're very much mission driven. There's a lot of marketing groups. There's a lot of ways to do business. As a Senior Market Advisor, I might see 50, 60 different marketing groups in there. I think maybe, the one of the things that makes us unique is that throughout my practice it took me a lot of years to develop a seminar problem. I love teaching it. But more importantly, it's my belief that the most important person in my practice is my client, and I like to take my time. I don't want to do business in the first call or even the second appointment when they come into my office. I want to really get to know them before I start doing business with them, and I think that develops a stronger client relationship than just going out.
Believe me, there's lots of people out there that can go out and do business the first call and then move on and do another client and then they move on. Me? I like to take my time. Really get to know the client. Get to know their family. Get to know what they like, what they don't like. And that allows me, I think, to give better advice. Also, I think, well, I know for sure that if it develops a client, it's going to be a client for a lifetime, and that's what I'm looking for. And I just take one step at a time, so, I think, the way we approach clients is a little bit different.
Also, when I said goals, I meant setting production goals. I have no concern about how much money I'm going to make. I set activity goals, and I know if I do a seminar a month or a mailing a month, but, generally, it's three seminars a month, I know that that activity is going to draw people through my office. And ultimately I'm going to do business, but I try to set activity goals and teach people how to do that and maybe, set a higher moral standard for themselves.
Beyond that, I think the other difference that Randall Marketing Group has that a lot of companies don't have at this point, and they're beginning to, is I grew up on the security side of the business and kind of worked my way into the annuity side. And now with the regulations the way they are, the licensing issue is really becoming an issue. And having a good broker dealer behind us that makes sense to work with, whether you get a Series 6 license or you don't or you become a registered investment advisor or investment advisor representative. We have all those answers kind of put together in our program to make sure that the people that we train and we work with are going to be in the business forever and not going to be washed out because regulators don't allow them to do business anymore.
So, those are just, I think, a few of the differences that we have that make us a little unique, but there are a lot of organizations out there that do things well. There's a lot of organizations out there that maybe, I don't agree with. But what we're looking for, we're looking kind of for a mission driven person, someone that really wants to help their clients and puts themselves second. That's kind of the person that we're looking for, I think.
Clyde: Right. And what we find is that, in the long run or even in the short run, actually, when your orientation and your focus is on the client, you end up being more successful. The money comes, but the focus is on the client and the process and doing the process properly rather than on the goal of making more money. And when that happens, the person is really more powerful and ends up receiving a lot of support and just more of a force behind him in terms of really being in that mission driven kind of capacity. So, that's really a big thing with us. If somebody just really their focus is learning how to become a salesman, we're probably not the group for them, I would say.
Really what we're looking for are people that really love the career of financial services, really want to be a full service financial advisor to their clients. And a lot of our guys come to us and they're not fully licensed. They've just been selling annuities or just selling life insurance, but they want to learn how to be a full service financial advisor. We're really good for that kind of an agent. We're really good for an agent who wants to be very, very successful and make a lot of money but isn't trying to do it overnight, that realizes that this is a process.
What Craig teaches is a phenomenally successful program to teach somebody how to be able to make seven figures. Some of our guys are making over seven figures every year, but it's taken them two or three years to really learn the system because it is different than just learning a different sales technique or a different phrase to get somebody to close the sale. It's different than that. It's much more comprehensive, and it really is going to teach you how to develop a lifelong relationship with your client. So, that's what we're about. Some people are a good fit with that. Some aren't. So, we want to be very straight and upfront with people about what we are about so that you know whether or not it's going to be a good fit for you if that's what you're looking for.
The other thing is that makes us different is that we really aren't interested in having thousands of people in our marketing organization. In fact, we're not interested in having much over 100 people in our marketing organization. We have exclusive territories, so we don't want more than one rep in an area that's using our seminar, for example, in which we have, by the way, a [inaudible 06:40] reviewed seminar. But we don't want more than one person in that territory using our material which limits our growth, but the advantage of that is it makes us a very tight organization very much like a family. We give a lot of personal attention. Both Craig and I are very, very involved in personal coaching which probably, when you look at all things that we have, if you want to say what is the most different about our organization, is that Craig and I have the time to spend with personal coaching with each of our agents to make sure that they're getting the system and learning it properly and getting them over the rough spots that they'll inevitably have in learning any new system. So, that's kind of really the thing.
I'm going to ask Craig now to comment a little bit about what happens to some of our agents as they shift from just being annuity agents to getting their license, being with our broker dealer, and starting to do assets under management as well in terms of what happens to their career and to their bottom line in terms of their revenues.
Craig: Sure. I think the other thing that makes us different also is that I'm a producer. I still produce. I still have clients.
Clyde: Right.
Craig: I'm still actively working in the field so that I can relate. I know there's a lot of marketing organizations where the lead person or the coach isn't producing anymore. And to me, I'm a producer. That's what I do. I love working with my clients, but Clyde mentioned we have a small group of Randall Marketing Group family members I like to call them kind of around the United States. And my goal in our organization is to make a handful of people really successful. That's what my goal is. That's where I get my thrill from.
Now Clyde asked how do things change when you get a Series 6 license or you become an investment advisor representative or whichever route you decide to go, and I tell you what we find. This is really interesting is that we'll have an agent that's been selling life insurance but mostly annuities for their whole career. And they've been leaving so much money on the table. There are so many things they can do for these clients that they're not doing because they're not licensed properly. But you get a Series 6 license, easy to get, and what you'll find is that you can do more things for the client. You're actually going to write more annuity business, too, because you're going to get more clients.
What will happen is through our seminar program, you're going to see so many people that you can pick up these investments they've bought from other people down the road, and you can become rep on record there. I bet you, if you consistently go after that people, and you're not going to make any commissions there because you're just being rep on record, but guess what. A lot these things pay trails.
My goal is in three or four years, maybe four years, maybe a little bit longer than four years, that once you understand how our training works and you've gone through our system and you were really taking advantage of the coaching and all the things we offer, is that you'll have a practice that's going to pay you maybe several hundred thousand dollars a year waking up January 1st just from trails and management fees. You don't have to do any business to make that money. There's also a retirement program that we have that if you decide to retire, you can collect 75% of that for the next 20 years without having to see a single person.
So, I find that instead of being in a stressful sales position when you always have to do a piece of business to make money, what we're designing is what I've built my practice on over the years. We're just modeling with everyone else is a way to really build your dream. Work with a lot of clients, encompass all their assets, help them with estate planning, with their variable investments, with their fixed investments, all those things we can do and develop a recurring stream of income for yourself that will produce retirement income for maybe the rest of your life. But take the stress out of the job. That's what I like, and I think that's what having the ability to do more things than just annuities does.
Clyde: Right. Exactly.
Craig: It takes the stress out.
Clyde: Yeah, and one of the things about our program to just continue with that theme of the residual income, our program even includes an option where that residual income, 75% of it for 20 years, is available to the beneficiary in case you die or you're disabled. So, that is a program that we believe is totally unique in the industry. Not only are you building that residual income for yourself, you're also building it for your family should something happen to you. We think that that's also an important factor. Again, kind of the theme is to us family is the most important of all. And that doesn't mean just the RMG family, but it means your families if you're part of RMG as well.
Our boot camps, by the way, which I should just mention briefly are a great way for us to meet everybody. In fact, a lot of people bring their wives to the boot camp or their spouses to the boot camps which really is a good idea. A lot spouses are involved in the business, but even if they aren't, it's a good idea to come and meet everybody. Our people are getting to know everybody. Since we have exclusive territories all over the country, we have literally people from all states, all parts of the country, coming to our boot camps every month or so to be together and forming relationships that last a lifetime. So, it really is a very extraordinarily close group of people. We're just probably not going to be taking anybody in another year or so. So, we're just looking to fill a few more territories that we have left. It's a very exciting opportunity.
Our boot camps, there's two right now. We're going to be adding a third very soon. Our first boot camp, you learn the entire process of doing the seminar and setting appointments. Our goal is to see you as soon as you learn that and you come out of there starting to do, at least, 70%
appointments. Once you get the process down, you should be doing 75, 80% or more appointments every single time you give one of our seminars.
In the advanced boot camp is where you learn what Craig called the three stage process, the three stages of actually going through the process, getting to know the client, finding the thing that's most broken and fixing that one thing so that you establish a relationship after just going for that one thing and not asking them to do too much, and then going ahead after that's done and fulfilling the rest of their plan that they're going to need for their entire financial future. So, that's what we do at the advanced boot camp. Now, most of our people come back for that advanced boot camp twice a year because you can never get too much of that. And because we do a lot of case studies, it's always different.
I was thinking, Craig, maybe you'd want to just mention a little bit about what we're going to be adding in terms of Randall Wealth University.
Craig: Yeah. As people get different securities licenses, they move in different areas. A lot of people don't know variable products and estate planning issues and life insurance and trusts, so we have an attorney that's going to help us explain how living trusts work. A lot of you probably know how they work, but there's intricacies there we need to understand. We have a new life insurance expert that's going to help us with estate planning issues. Clyde described the boot camps pretty well, the intro and the master program. University is really me digging more into each person's business, their planning business, so I can help them develop that business over the years.
I'm a pretty good business consultant because I've developed my business to a point where I feel like I'm pretty successful. And I can help you or those people that are with us model their business and develop kind of a stress-free lifestyle where they're just helping the people they want to help and making the money they want to make. So, there's going to be lots of things we do in the University program that we don't do now in the boot camp, but it's just taking you to the next step, the next level. I think that's where we want to go.
Clyde: Yeah. And so that's pretty much it. That should give you a pretty good feel of what we are. Just kind of to recap. Basically, I think what Craig just said is a very, very important thing to end on and just to reemphasize is that what Craig has done is he has designed a program that takes the stress out of the process, not only for you, but for the client. This process that he's developed is very easy, very easy to do. There's never any point in the three stage appointment process where the client is going to feel any strain or stress, or you're going to feel any strain or stress. It's very, very easy to do. And once somebody masters that process, this is the comment we get from our guys over, and over, and over again. It's so easy. It's so stress free. The client just naturally says if you do this right, when you ask them if they want you to fix that problem for them, their answer is going to be yes. And then they come back again, and you take care of that first piece of business and then you go from there. It's very, very simple.
The seminar itself also is very easy. It's very entertaining. It's very light, yet it works. It's very, very powerful. It's deceptive almost because it seems so easy, but it's very, very powerful, and people want you to become their financial advisor. They want to come in and see you at the end of the seminar. So, 75% of the people write down on a piece of paper a time and appointment when they want to come in and see you. So rather than you going out and begging for appointments, which is the way it is with most seminar processes, these people are actually asking you for an appointment at the end of the seminar. It's extremely powerful, but, again, stress free. So I wanted to emphasize that.
I also just wanted to finish with emphasizing the fact that we're really a family. We don't have a lot of people, and we really do give our agents a lot of personal time and personal coaching. In fact, we set up meetings with you for every two weeks of coaching. In addition, we're always available if something happens, if you have a question. We're always available, both of us, for you at any time. So, it's a very unique organization. We're looking for people who fit with us. We just wanted to take this time today and give you an overview of our company and give you a chance to meet both Craig and I. So, thank you very much for joining us today and have a wonderful day.
Craig: I appreciate taking time out of your day. If there is anything we can do for you, just be sure and let us know. Thank you.