Mike Volner pushes away prospects...yes, really.

Back in his office Volner pushes a plate of pecan pie in my direction. I skipped breakfast to get to the interview and ponder the sugar spike that will hit me from eating so much sweet goodness on an empty stomach.

"Go ahead, eat. We can get started after we finish eating," Mike's voice booms. It's a directive. Eat pie!

I do as I'm told. After all Volner is a big man, huge by any standards, standing 6'5" and weighing in at 320 pounds, (I know this because he stood on a scale and had me guess his weight) and he has the physique and hypnotic personality of a retired wrestler.

After finishing off the pie I'm offered a second piece and have to decline. I can already feel the sugar buzz and don't want this meeting getting out of hand.

Volner tells me about his client relationships. "Not every client is right," he says. He tells every last prospect he meets: "I may not be right for you." It saves both of them time. It allows Volner to be who he is. "I'm not a jack-of-all-trades. I'm a specialist."

Financial cornerstone

For Volner the specialty is annuities, in particular, fixed indexed annuities. He turns a lot of business away because the fit isn't right for either party. But enough business is getting done, and then some. For the fourth straight year Volner will top $20 million in production. One year he even hit $25 million. And that's all him. No junior agents or down lines.

"I'm real," Volner explains in talking about his success. "I don't tell people what they want to hear. And, I don't tell different people different things." Maybe he sounds like a broken record but that's OK. There's no worry of waffling on the message with Volner. He sticks to a single note: the safety of annuities.

"I had a guy show up at a recent seminar and tell me he'd been to one of my events three years ago. He said, 'You haven't changed a thing. You keep saying the same thing.' "

Whether it was meant as a compliment or not, that's how Volner took it. After all, his message doesn't change. He found something that works. Why change something that ain't broke?

He tells me about the early days. He got by in the insurance world for years, decades. He'd make a sale. He paid the bills. But, at the end of the day, "I just wasn't all that good."

He talks about his journey to his current, lofty status. "I'm a hardworking, straightforward, blue-collar kind of guy," he says.

He got that from his Dad, who was a Memphis bus driver. As a kid, Volner was a good athlete, always a little taller than the other kids, his long legs propelling him to success in track and field. Back then he could run for days. He shows me a picture of a kid built like a broom with elbows and knees.

On his own

"Even as a kid, I dreamed of having my own business. My Dad always told me to 'just do the next right thing and things will work out good for you.' Well, they have."

I ask him, what happened then, that took him from good to great? Two things, he tells me, made a difference. "I sold life and health insurance for a long time." He did fine, but then he discovered and started focusing on "the world of fixed and fixed indexed annuities, and how to use them properly. I've learned how they can be a financial cornerstone, whether you want your money to just sit there and grow or you need income." 

Volner points to a chart in his office that tracks the results of annuities versus two other financial returns from 1998 to the present. "You can see the stock market outpaced annuities the first two years," he says. Then the dot-com crash let the air out of the market. That market line on the graph plummeted. The annuity line kept its slow, steady upward climb. That was 2000. According to the chart the stock market hasn't caught up yet and the gap only widens.

All clients and prospects, whether at seminars or in Volner's office, get an eyeful of this chart that shows the S&P outpacing annuities from 1998 to 2000. Since then, it's been a different story—with annuities taking an ever-widening lead.

The other thing Volner did was he established a system. That system includes his team, the organization that's in place, a "no-bull" approach to clients and an emphasis on seminars. He averages 50-plus a year. One year he topped 80 seminars, but even he sees that as too many and has settled in on 50 or so as a sweet spot.

Oh, did I mention that "no-bull" approach? Yeah, that's worked for him, too. As Volner tells it: "With the prospects I tell them that my products may not be right for them. And I also let them know that I will tell them what I would do if it were my money, and if they like it, fine. If not, it won't hurt my feelings. I see six to 10 people per day, and I can't help all of them, although I try."

Throughout Volner's office you will see tortoises. There's a reason for that. As Volner explains: "I really believe in the message from the Aesop's fable,  'The Tortoise and the Hare.' Slow and steady won that race." 

What Volner has mastered is something he calls "a push away. Some people say I use reverse psychology, but I disagree. I say if I can talk you into it, someone else can talk you out of it. I really try to make sure I'm not talking anyone into anything."

The push away leads to committed clients

"This (push away) strategy came about when I realized I was using lots and lots of energy trying to convince people to do something," Volner says. But when he would ask people seemingly negative questions about their financial decisions, it either removed the doubt they had or both parties realized this product wasn't the right fit for them. "Many people have commented to me they love the way I did not push them into anything. It's a great feeling. This tends to result in solid decisions that don't go backward."

However, once both parties do see eye-to-eye on the product, they become like family, and, Volner says, he's in it with them for the long haul. One of his favorite stories is the fable of "The Tortoise and the Hare." When you walk around Volner's office you don't see many hares. Quick sales are not in his business model.

As he tells me, "I don't do things that I don't really, really believe in. And, something that I really believe in is the message from 'The Tortoise and the Hare.' Now, the hare, he was really fast, but the tortoise won the race. Slow and steady won the race.

"That's what I do. That's what I've been doing for the last 34 years—I've been helping people slowly and steadily win their financial race, one person at a time, one client at a time and so far, it's worked out pretty well."

Since childhood, Volner has always identified with bigger-than-life figures to give him something to aspire to. Two of his biggest heroes as a boy were Roy Rogers and Mickey Mantle. He's kept many of the mementos, including the Roy Rogers lunchbox he took to school every day.