How Ali Taghikhani Is Building a Kick-Ass Company Culture

[00:00:05] Rob: your second biggest asset, theoretically is your life insurance policy, should you? Your home is your first, and if you don't own a home, then your life insurance policy is your biggest asset. And people do not know that they own their policy, like they own their home.

[00:00:21] Hector: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale a Business Podcast. My name is Hector Santi Esteban, and I am your host for today. Our special guest is Mr. Rob Haney, and he is, someone who has spent a lot of time in the building, not only business, but building people, organizations in the life insurance business, and, one of the most, tenured and successful ones in the space.

[00:00:41] Hector: So, Rob, thanks for hanging out with us today.

[00:00:44] Rob: Well, thank you for having me, Hector. I appreciate it.

[00:00:46] Hector: I'm curious for you, you've seemed to have, been great, not at one thing, but you've seemed to have followed a path and really taken it to the, to the umpteenth mile. when you look back on your career, what were some of the big milestones and then, what do you say that you, when people ask you, what do you do today?

[00:01:04] Hector: what's the tough answer for that question?

[00:01:06] Rob: That's a good question. So, Really at the beginning , we were kind of in a brand new industry, so you know, really didn't know where we were going and how we were gonna get there. We were younger, we're working for a gentleman.

[00:01:20] Rob: Fortunately, he passed away and his wife took over. But we kind of kept the business going. The idea alive that we were going to educate people about our business. And at the time, most of that was done by cold calling and mailing. The internet really wasn't big yet. and then we had a hiccup in the market in the sense that what we were helping people do at the time, which was sell a life insurance policy when they were, inflicted with a terminal or chronic illness, mainly HIV and aids.

[00:01:46] Rob: around 97, 98 AIDS was cured, more or less. If you took the medi medicine in a cocktail combination. you lived, could live the rest of your life. No different than if you had diabetes and were taking insulin. So we were then survival mode,at that time and during the course of that couple of years, we decided to make a move and kind of break free.

[00:02:06] Rob: We blew the company up, if you will, organized in an organized fashion. Some people stayed in Orlando, other people went to South Florida like we did, and we kind of started our own company, which was at the time called Life Settlement Alliance and later on life Insurance settlements. and.

[00:02:21] Rob: We've decided along with a lot of others, it wasn't just me. It wasn't just me. It was, I have a great, two great business partners, but we decided that we were gonna educate a different type of person. We're gonna go into the financial services sector and talk to them about life insurance policies that they had on the books, and could they.

[00:02:39] Rob: Evaluate those that were getting ready to el lapse or surrender and determine if they'd like to look for a life settlement. And that's really how we grew the business. But the key point I'm trying to say is we went from doing a lot about volume to doing hardly any, and then we moved up, did a lot of volume again.

[00:02:54] Rob: Jump ahead to the financial crisis. We saw a hiccup again there. The credit markets froze. It got a little more difficult to buy policies, not necessarily find people to sell 'em. Certainly in a recessionary climate, people are really getting rid of assets as opposed to buying new ones. but the funny part is that as they sit here today, and I look back at the gen, the individuals that worked with me back in the, 93, 94, 95, the great majority of them are still in our business today.

[00:03:19] Rob: and I think what we all learned together collectively was, put your head down, keep going, keep believing in what you're doing. And,you'll find your way back to, solid ground if you'll, so we had a couple series of those. We had that couldn't. We had COVID, we went through that, taught us a couple different lessons that taught us that life insurance is in fact a luxury.

[00:03:42] Rob: So when you think about all the financial assets you have side by side, your mortgage, your medical insurance, your car insurance, on and on. At the end of that rainbow, life insurance. That's not really necessary. You don't really have the money to do that, so a lot of people were looking to liquidate that, to use that cap capital to do other things.

[00:03:59] Rob: Obviously we came climbed out of COVID and as we sit here today, as I say it again, we have a really weird world we're dealing with right now. So we don't know where we're going. but what we always maintained was people buy life insurance for a series of reasons at the age in which they buy it.

[00:04:17] Rob: Mainly, you think about it's for protection in case the spouse dies, the mortgage gets paid, the kid's college fund continues to get funded, et cetera. But now you're no longer 35, you're 70, 35 years later. Do those reasons exist anymore? And you'll find for most, they don't. So the life insurance companies wanna tell you that, hey.

[00:04:37] Rob: The only option you have is you can let it lapse or surrender it. They don't tell 'em that they can do this, and there's a reason they don't. So it's up to us to do it. So I had this conversation with my wife about a week ago. I treat my day and my mission no differently than I did 32 years ago, because I still think we're in a, we're in a, we're in a business that's still in its infancy.

[00:05:02] Rob: Almost like it hasn't started yet because the awareness isn't there. So I tell people, what do you do? Well, first of all, we don't sell anything. Nothing to work with me doesn't cost anything unless we find you an offer and then there's a commission that's delivered to us, but you're gonna approve that commission.

[00:05:17] Rob: The goal here is just to educate. Is to put that in their mind. So get them anywhere. They could be 50 years old right now, which they're not gonna be able to sell their life insurance policy, but they have that information in their head. So 20 years from now, they might be in a position where they wanna sell their life insurance policy and have that option.

[00:05:33] Rob: And the reason it's important is, talk about growing a business and scaling a business. You're not working with thousands of financial professionals. And once that settlement takes place, it's usually six and a half times more. Than it is if you were to surrender a Let elapse. So if you, if your surrender value was $25,000, give you a good example.

[00:05:54] Rob: when you sold it, it's about 150. On average, roughly. So now that one 50 comes back into the possession of the client and the financial advisor who had told the client about this option, they usually give that to the client. They put that to work and something else could be an annuity help fund, the long-term care policy, whatever.

[00:06:13] Rob: that's found money. When you're in sales and you're trying to sell them something, which isn't us, but it is them. The first thing you need to do to sell 'em a life insurance policy or an annuity or a long-term care plan is money. Without money. They're not buying anything. So this money's just sitting out there.

[00:06:31] Rob: When we know that we buy, our industry buys $4 billion a year in death benefit collectively, right? Roughly. We know that 112 billion. Of death benefit goes into the garbage every year for people over the age of 65. That's on top of the 4 billion we buy. So when I go back to my example of, I think I'm in a business that hasn't started yet, that proves it.

[00:06:56] Rob: So the goal is, the build stuff is just to, first of all, it's easy to build with people to come in to work for me now 'cause they see I've been doing it for 32 years. they know it works. and we do, we make a great living. we're not sitting in the second row of the presidential inauguration, but we're doing okay.

[00:07:11] Rob: and as long as we continue to get our message out, in as many di variety of ways, including podcasts, I'm gonna continue to deal with them.

[00:07:20] Hector: the reason I love having someone like you on the show is that you, there are so many people who are listening who are not in the life insurance industry, who are listening to that, and they're there, there's so many parallels that they're relating to or so many lessons that they can take from that.

[00:07:34] Hector: and without minimizing it too much,there, I'm curious what sort of. Business you're in. And when I say that, there's been a lot of people who say, we're not in the X business, we're in the people business. Or This isn't,a widget business. This is a sales business. if we were to sort of take that frame to your business and your career, what would you say that your, what business are you actually in?

[00:07:57] Rob: So we are in the life insurance business. That's how I'm licensed. we are obviously a one-off from the life insurance business because we only can sell life insurance policies in our business. That's what we sell, if that makes any sense. So the financial services, sometimes it's clicked in Florida, it's called financial services.

[00:08:22] Rob: Life insurance is underneath that.

[00:08:24] Hector: but when you wake up in the morning, are you thinking about, and perhaps it is, which I think is an interesting take and I'd love to dive deeper into sort of your process. But when you're, when you wake up, are you thinking about life insurance or are you thinking.

[00:08:36] Hector: People on the team, are you thinking about, is it, a growth, a networking thing? when, maybe perhaps the better way to ask this is what, what really drives the business or what's the lever that, that you're constantly pulling the throttle on to move the business forward?

[00:08:52] Rob: All the above. I think about everything. That's my problem and that's a good one to have. I kind of think about, but I think about it, it's education. This is an education process, so. I get up every day and think, what can I do to position both myself and my company in a position where if somebody wants to know what a life settlement is, they look to us.

[00:09:14] Rob: So I'll tell you an interesting thing, which I did not know and can take zero credit for, but I'm gonna take it as an opportunity, to take advantage of. So AI has become pretty big, as in almost any aspect of life. So especially in life expectancies, there's a ai, AI component to that and which is part of our business underwriting, anything related to insurance policies, due diligence.

[00:09:36] Rob: But I also learned that in AI to get onto, for example, the Google overview, when you click with what is a life settlement, there's a Google overview. And it kind of tells you what it is and it's constantly changing. It gets more and more education, more and more information, right? So through our PR firm that we hired, through our association, they said it's hard to get, be relevant in AI if it's not true.

[00:10:03] Rob: Meaning AI's doing the best it can to get credible sources to create content that's believable. They're not going getting it from editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal of Washington Post. They're getting it from facts. Case studies, court rulings, et cetera. So I thought about that for a second. I thought about myself and I said, okay, let me ask a question here, because a lot of people call me, have called me Mr.

[00:10:28] Rob: Life Settlements as a joke, but enough to where a lot of people know that it's, they think Mr. Place, so must think of me. So if you go to Google or any chat, EBTI don't care where you go, Claude. You say, who's Mr. Life Settlements? It says me. Now, I didn't do that, but because it's a fact, I'm gonna take advantage of it.

[00:10:52] Rob: And that is a way I'm gonna help create a platform, some of like a parallel, program running against, my own company life settlements. I'm gonna be over here as Mr. Life settlements. I, and both nets, if you will capture results, but people will start to believe it. So what scared me and also in a good way, was when you go to the review.

[00:11:11] Rob: 85% of the people that go to Google and get that gay interview, never leave the overview. They're done. They don't need to go to the sponsored ads, they don't need to go down to the, OR organic. So theoretically thinking the internet is from a, standpoint of trying to get your rankings up and all your words to get into.

[00:11:33] Rob: Wouldn't you matter? Problem is there's no way to monetize that top part 'cause no one's paying to get on there. Like I can't pay Google to say, Hey, make me Mr. Life settlements, or, Hey, make me the best company in the world. So. That's become my focus. Now. I've got another person that knows AI inside and out that's teaching me every day it's even going to college for this stuff to understand how it works.

[00:11:56] Rob: But I think it's gonna be valuable as an educational tool because the more relevant content we can get out there in publish surveys, studies. Common sense case studies where it's like you can't argue against, well, my client doesn't really need $5 million. They should just surrender it for $12,000.

[00:12:13] Rob: Like, that's not an argument you're gonna win. Somehow they think that, but they're not. More of that, I can get out there into the world, the better off it is. I'm actually writing a book right now. We're very small book, which was,I give a history of my life in this business and I've collected over the years.

[00:12:32] Rob: All the different people that have told me all the reasons why it's not a good idea to look into or at least ex explore the life settlement opportunity. it provided their client has life insurance and they don't want it. They don't need it or can't afford it. And I've compiled a list of all these great reasons why you shouldn't look into one.

[00:12:49] Rob: And then I turned the page and the list is blank. 'cause there isn't a good one. There's not a good one. I mean, you've, I've tried, I've asked ju going in front of, thousands of people said, gimme one reason why you don't think it's a good idea because you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

[00:13:04] Rob: Right. And it,and here's the thing. Some people say they're gonna get a lot more money. Well, you know what, sometimes they go to us and they find out they get a lot more than they even thought they were gonna get with. And you know what that does? That makes it real. And they don't sell it, it's now something they're holding onto.

[00:13:20] Rob: It's almost like a savings account. They know their policy's worth this much money, should they need it down the road. They don't want, they don't need it right now because you know how much they're gonna get. and that's all we're trying to do is how are you gonna, how are you gonna, in your right mind think that you've done a great job of comparing your options when you don't even know what one of the options is, how.

[00:13:42] Rob: So long way to get there in, in the question you asked me. But you know, I get up every day and think of new ways to tell the same story in a format or in such a way that's more interesting than yesterday. I don't really change the words. I'm also going from more words. To less words. I say my speech, my presentations that I get to people, I maybe like six or seven slides.

[00:14:06] Rob: If even do slides. It's more or less the give and take questions and answers. 'cause that's the only way you find out what people really wanna know.

[00:14:14] Hector: Yeah, you mentioned it being an education business and it seems like you are constantly looking for ways to evolve in which you're doing that and the mediums and the messaging and because technology is shifting and changing so much, how you are getting through to people.

[00:14:29] Hector: It seems has to evolve over those times as well. You just probably happen to pick the three decades of business that had the quickest amount of transformation. things are really shifting. But it's cool to see you, continuing to learn even to this day.

[00:14:44] Rob: you have to. you're in the same business and think of, so that's a interesting point. Take a second and tell you. Most of life insurance agents that have the type of policy holders that we're looking for are older. Like me, I'm 60, gonna be 62 in June. They're even older than that.

[00:14:59] Rob: They don't even have emails. They don't know how to send a text. there's no sophistication whatsoever. But as we're moving through. The time warp, we'll call it, they're fizzling out and here comes the new and they're, these tend to be more involved in the internet, more involved in LinkedIn, educating from a LinkedIn perspective.

[00:15:20] Rob: so I wanna be ahead of them. I don't wanna be playing catch up. I'm sure I will never be as ahead of everyone that like I wish I was, but that's why I have other people on my team. It's not just me for certain, that help me make it easier for me. but you know, like I said earlier, and I'll say it again, 'cause you do, you obviously do a good job or Nikki doesn't gimme anybody.

[00:15:39] Rob: She doesn't like, that this type of format, in my opinion is the best format there is because it's evergreen. Meaning my business doesn't changed that much over the course of two years to where the same thing that happens today, it's gonna happen in two years. And when it comes to you, I don't know who your audience is, but I promise you there's somebody there.

[00:15:59] Rob: It doesn't have to be someone who's. 75 with a policy. It could be somebody's daughter who's just had a conversation with their mom or dad that I'm getting ready to get outta my house, or I need to go to assisted living, or whatever. It's, and they're looking for money and many people just don't know that.

[00:16:16] Rob: basically your second biggest asset, theoretically is your life insurance policy, should you? Your home is your first, and if you don't own a home, then your life insurance policy is your biggest asset. And people do not know that they own their policy, like they own their home. Actually, in 1911 is when our industry started.

[00:16:35] Rob: Theoretically. That's when, Supreme Court, justice Oliver Wendell said that life insurance has the same property, real, real property value as real estate. It's yours. I can make. I can give my house to whoever I want. I can give my life insurance policy to whoever I want, but you're never told that.

[00:16:54] Rob: You are never told. It's like you're trapped in it. And the only way out is to go be giving back the money. We call, I call that a monopsony, right? So if we were buying, you and I were buying a commercial real estate building and for an investment, and we were told that it's, $4 million and we own it.

[00:17:09] Rob: And, now when we wanna sell it five years from now, 20 years from now, you have to come back to me who soldier the building. I will tell you what I'm gonna give you. And that's it. There's no discussion. There's no like. And the answer is that's what the real estate, I mean the life insurance companies want from you.

[00:17:24] Rob: They want you have one way in and one way out. And the reality is you do not have to do, you can gift your policy to your church and gift it to your school, your, rescue center in your community. It's yours. You can throw it out. You can quit paying for it. All these different tools are available, but the one thing they won't tell you is about us, and we're regulated by the same.

[00:17:48] Rob: Department of insurance, so the rules are stacked against us. Against us.

[00:17:53] Hector: I would imagine that there are a lot of companies that deal with a certain, a similar issue where it's not even that there's an awareness, there's such a lack of awareness that you're starting from, it seems like even before scratch, right?

[00:18:09] Hector: Like you're not even starting from baseline. Where do you think, or what lessons have you learned in regards to that? is there certain people, like is it that you certain that you focus on a certain part of the market because they're more receptive to, a message like this? Is it that you've tailored your message to, to impact and land a certain way so that people open or are willing to open their minds to it?

[00:18:33] Hector: what are some things that you've done over the years? So

[00:18:36] Rob: great question. So one, one of the things that we've done, so take the RIA world, the broker dealers, we have gone to them and they have a literally a fiduciary duty to do what's in the best interest of their client. So by them not doing life settlements, it basically just violates that fiduciary duty.

[00:18:53] Rob: So I don't wanna say this is the best thing, but it's pretty close. a. Broker dealer rolled out life settlements. They approve life settlements for all their reps. They don't have to do an outside business activity. They can just do life settlements. Well, one of their RIAs decided that when he was asked by their client, what's my option?

[00:19:13] Rob: He said, well, you're best off just surrendering the policy, so don't gimme quote on the numbers. It was about 20 grand, so they surrendered it. Two weeks later, they saw a TV ad that said. You could sell your policy, call us. So they did and they found out it would've gotten somewhere between 1.2 and 1.4 million.

[00:19:37] Rob: So policy was already gone, had been surrendered. But now enter the e and o coverage. They sued the broker dealer who did nothing wrong 'cause he edu they educated their entire RIA base. But the RIA took it upon himself to not do what was correct. He's gone. He's no longer with them. They paid, the client actually came out better because they got more than the amount of money that they were gonna get, from, quoted from them for damages, et cetera.

[00:20:06] Rob: And, and the, and the broker dealer as a ding on their record, they didn't, and again, didn't do anything wrong. So we used that example a lot because you wanna talk about, get someone's attention, let 'em know their e and o coverage is gonna be because now they got finra. All those other fun little organizations that, that kind of monitor the securities world.

[00:20:25] Rob: and they are SECI should say, and they just panic. So they make it more so that they talk about life settlements. They always say things like, oh, we never knew about life settlements. And you're like, do you take continuing education every two years for your insurance license? Like, yeah, I said, well then you definitely know about life settlements.

[00:20:44] Rob: 'cause they always have two to four questions in there about it. They're all wrong. Get me, don't get me wrong, right? They're wrong, they're incorrect. You have to find which of the four wrong answers is the closest to right to get it right, but they're in there. so that doesn't work. and it's just easier to, to repurpose those dollars from a life settlement into another product than it's just to let it go.

[00:21:07] Rob: some of it could just be lazy. they just don't, they feel like they have the time to do it, but they don't have to do anything. They just have to give us the name, fill out the application. We do everything. so, it's full circle me. It's constantly, I try and think of what else could I do?

[00:21:21] Rob: And it, I feel like the only thing I need to be doing is educate. because the more I educate, the more deal flow we see.

[00:21:27] Hector: Well, you've got a,it's a really well, well. Position product, it's just you've got a great product or service, given all of the things that, that go into it.

[00:21:40] Hector: and it sort of allows you to focus on educating and helping people and helping them in a valuable way. And, and I think it's something that when people are looking for the offerings or the services that they can provide, it seems like you've been able to leverage a lot of,great.

[00:21:55] Hector: Systems and things that are in place, to really allow you to be that lever and that value add to people, that really becomes a no brainer.

[00:22:04] Rob: Well, we try and frame it as. Majority people now is to be their back office for settlements. Like we are just literally a hole in the wall that you throw a settlement through and we push it back out.

[00:22:14] Rob: If it gets an offer, we can communicate with the client directly. We can communicate to you to communicate with the client whatever they want. There's no nothing back off. We don't have thousands of deals going on every single day, so it's not like we're so busy we can't do everything.

[00:22:28] Rob: The hardest part in our business and something I've yet to. Figure out, and I doubt I ever will, I'm being honest with you. I might give up on this one, is to, modernize the customer service, at the insurance company. they do not care about speed or service or anything. I don't think it's their fault.

[00:22:50] Rob: It's not the people's fault. I don't fault the people, but I'll give you a weird example. During COVID, now you get to fax things in the insurance company. I need this for such and such client. You fax it into a fax machine somewhere in the middle of this giant corporation and somebody takes it to somebody, they fill it out, okay? That's number one. When you record medical records from a doctor's office, if they have a, if they have a records company that has all the records, you will have them do a copy service, more or less.

[00:23:19] Rob: They'll copy the records. Then they will literally put them in a manila envelope. And if it's too much information, they'll cut both sides out and tape it together and they'll mail that to you. Okay? Now, New York has a cybersecurity, restriction and a due diligence process that you must comply with as a licensee in the state.

[00:23:41] Rob: So everything, we get, medical records, insurance information, personal information is encrypted. Uploaded and then sent to a server that's encrypted on the other end, and they get the stuff in and out. And when we go to, we've, I've actually been in a place where we've testified to this and I said, you do realize that the records that we encrypt come in the mail.

[00:24:04] Rob: from the insurance company, I mean from the doctor's office. You do know that, right? There's no, and we have to fax them too. And then, so I had 'em all laugh and I said, so I just want you to know like, good. You should really, if you really want us to pay attention to that, I can't in good faith tell you that I've had, this, has had clean custody because it's been in my office in the middle envelope.

[00:24:23] Rob: I take it out, I get rid of it, I shred it, but it's it is what it is. So that's the world we live in. I said, here's the thing. Here's the difference between a life insurance company for customer service and a life insurance company for sales. If you need to sell something, they will have the state-of-the-art presentation presented to you, sent you an email, zip file, whatever for you to open up and just play a movie that tells everything for you perfectly.

[00:24:51] Rob: Now go back. Customer service, it's tall. Somebody on hold forever. If they need money, they'll fly a drone down a coal mine in West Virginia to swipe your credit card to get a, to get the payment. But to get a question answered, they won't. So that's kind of odd, but it's the way it is.

[00:25:12] Hector: Yeah. Well, I, yeah, I'd imagine that along with those currents,come along with some bureaucracy that you run into as well.

[00:25:19] Hector: I've got two more, two more questions for you, Rob.

[00:25:22] Hector: The first is, if people wanna get more connected with you, I believe you even have a podcast of your own or,find out more about the upcoming book, where's the best place for people to go?

[00:25:31] Rob: I can go to, my website, which is www dot.

[00:25:37] Rob: Li settlements.com. they call me personally on my cell phone, which is (954) 599-4433. And my email for those who are inclined to do that, it's RO b@lisettlements.com.

[00:25:52] Hector: Amazing. We'll link all that up in the show notes for you listeners, as always. And, Rob, my last question for you is, in your opinion, what is the secret to scaling a business?

[00:26:01] Rob: Surround yourself with, people you like to work with, people that have a high degree of energy and ethical standards, and a no quit attitude. and when you have a bad day, realize that tomorrow's just around the corner. So don't think about it too long. Move on.